There are a lot of guests on this album. In fact, there are
so many guests and so little Damon Albarn that you almost forget that it’s a
Gorillaz album.
2010’s stoned eco-conscious Plastic Beach was an equally star-studded record featuring everyone
from Snoop Dogg to Lou Reed to Bobby Womack. Seven years on, Damon Albarn has decided
to try and outdo himself, returning with a party of guests large enough to make
one of Jay Gatsby’s shindigs look like a small turnout.
The result isn’t impressive, but instead claustrophobic and
messy as everyone struggles to find a place. Damon can barely get a look-in
himself – it’s not until track eight ‘Charger’ that the band frontman actually
manages to dominate a track and even then he’s sharing it with left-field guest
Grace Jones.
Clearly Damon doesn’t know what to do with this horde of
guests, and so shoves guests wherever he can fit them, regardless of whether
the tone of the song suits their musical style. After some slinky vocals from Kelela
on ‘Submission’, the choice to have Danny Brown bulldozing in with his squawking
delivery feels utterly inappropriate. And the choice to feature dark punk
songstress Jehnny Beth on triumphant closer ‘We Got The Power’ is like asking Tim Burton to shoot your wedding day video.
Indeed some of the guests do fit brilliantly with the beats
and themes that they’re given. ‘Ascension’ is an apocalyptic twerk-anthem –
not a concept you hear every day. It’s a brilliantly infectious and energetic Vince Staples song, even
if it doesn’t sound at all like a Gorillaz song.
Here lies the other main issue - the lack of authenticity. Much of
the Gorillaz’ cartoonish individuality is lost, which is why I keep referring
to Damon Albarn in this review and not his virtual character 2-D, because the
cartoon guise is no-where to be seen. Humanz feels like the work of humans rather than
animated weirdos, which may be intentional, but makes the album feel less wacky
and fun. Only a handful of tracks bring back the old zany Gorillaz vibes and personally
they are some of the best – namely groovy electropop jam ‘Andromeda’, quirky Brit-inflected
Grace Jones collab ‘Charger’ and overblown Euro-house stomper ‘Momentz’ (which features friendly faces De La Soul).
Rather frustratingly, more fun tracks of this calibre could
have made the cut, but for whatever reason Damon left them off the album and
reserved them as bonus tracks including synth-funk anthem ‘The Apprentice’ and playful
dance track ‘Out of Body’. This only further highlights the lack of sense going
into this album – why let audial atrocities like ‘We Got The Power’ slip through the net and not include gems like 'The Apprentice'?
All in all, it’s a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth
to the point that no-one knows what flavour broth it was supposed to be in the beginning. Moments like 'Momentz' are spicy, whilst others leave a sour taste in the mouth.
★★★☆☆
TRACK TASTER:
TRACK TASTER: