Damon Albarn is in love with England. England is a place that's been on this man's mind in one way or another since he started working on music. Of course, there was his work with Blur, and how he turned his group from capitalizing on the dying British music trend that was Madchester into being the leaders of an entirely new movement with Britpop. Much of his work during the early and mid 90's was the epitome of Britishness, with shoutouts to the Portobello Road Market or Primrose Hill. Above all else,
Modern Life is Rubbish and
Parklife were painting a vivid, colorful vision of London, one where despite its problems, living there wasn't so bad. With time, however, Damon's music had started to drift away from Britain in a sense. Later Blur records were much more influenced by American rock than British music and in particular British culture. This went doubly so for Gorillaz. While that group has had its share of British guests, many of them had come from all over the globe, from America to Syria. Even Damon himself had considered Gorillaz more of an American band, with how much more the concept and music had resonated with global audiences than with ones back home in England. With Gorillaz and other projects like Africa Express, Albarn had been looking internationally. One group of his, however, had Damon going back to his roots in a way.
2006 brought with it the rise of The Good, the Bad and the Queen. Damon Albarn brought with him drummer Tony Allen, guitarist Simon Tong and bassist Paul Simonon for a 12-song cycle taking a melancholy look at a post-Iraq War London released at the start of 2007. The quartet went toured throughout 2007, with the odd show in 2008 and 2011. These shows wouldn't be the last time that some of their members teamed up either. Damon roped in Paul and Simon to work on the next Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, with Paul also acting as bassist for the expansive world tour supporting the record and Simon subbing in for Jeff Wootton on guitar for a few dates. Damon and Tony had also launched another group that was called Rocket Juice and the Moon after the cover art for the album they made together (not unlike how The Good, the Bad and the Queen got their name.) Damon guested on the track Go Back on Tony's 2014 album and Tony in return showed up on Damon's solo tour that same year. Nothing seemed to materialize of any new material from the unnamed supergroup, however. This changed when in 2017 Damon let it slip about the band coming back together again for the release of a second album. Damon certainly seemed excited to tour the record and touted it as "the greatest thing... [he] ever made..." I was certainly hyped with this announcement. I adored this group's debut outing, as one could probably tell from the post I made
reviewing the first record. It's still the best album I've ever listened to! My only concern going into the release was about the production. Danger Mouse left a huge mark on the first album, and with that became one of my favorite parts of it. When Damon announced that it was Tony Visconti stepping into the producer role this time, I was very intrigued in how this would affect the album's sound and direction. If you couldn't tell from the title of this post, this decision still turned out to be a great one. 11 years on from the first record, this band is back in action and as great as they have ever been, rebounding like they never even split apart and ready to tackle Britain post-Brexit referendum.
1. Introduction - "I see what we do as The Good, the Bad and the Queen as cinematic," according to Paul Simonon in an interview. It makes total sense with that in mind to start off this record with a movie clip from an adaptation of The Canterbury Tales, but this intro also has another purpose. It makes the album feel like a journey, one that travels throughout British history and a more personal journey sorting out a person's emotions at a changing country. This works as the perfect mood-setter for our trip through Merrie Land.
2. Merrie Land - This title track was also the album's lead single and from the first listen I was floored with what I heard. The first thing that I took away from this song was just how dense it was, both in meanings and in the way Damon had sung his lyrics. There is lots of powerful symbolism and imagery here, like "the horses, the foxes, the sheep and the cows, bow down on their knees. To the fanfare of progress it's always the same, we cheer on the clowns as they roll into town and their faces look tired and sad to me..." It's so beautiful and striking but I think what makes lyrics like these work, not just on this track but on the rest of the record, is how they're delivered. Damon Albarn tries out something a little different with his vocals on this record where it's much more stream-of-conciousness, almost like spoken word at times (which we'll really get to hear towards the end of the record.) It was a style he picked up from Lou Reed after meeting up with him to record for Plastic Beach. Just this change really helps make this album stand out from not just this band's first record but anything else Damon has recorded yet. It's a style I really wouldn't mind hearing again (maybe on a new Gorillaz album?) The song gets strung together by a really nice lowrey organ performance by Damon that makes this track move along nicely. I adore the instrumental break where Demon Strings comes further into the mix, it's one of the most powerful moments on the record and brings chills down my spine every time I hear it (this feeling will be pretty common throughout the record.) You know, it really says something when a song this incredible is still somehow one of the lesser cuts from this album.
3. Gun to the Head - Of the three songs that have a recorder on the record, this track utilizes it the best. The recorders at the beginning feel like they're starting up some ancient royal ritual (like a
ritual union?) This is also the first track where this record begins to take a turn for the weird. Here, nightingales plead to keep their homes and unicorn heads are but one of the landmarks. Merrie Land at points begins to feel less and less real and more like some bizarre fever dream powered by illusions of what life used to be, like it ever was that at all. This song also harkens back to a Damon style of old, with the music-hall influences of early Blur records back in full force alongside a chorus that feels like the shotgun marriage of a Parklife track with the future Britain faces now. "We don't care, cause we're all, animal lovers! We like to share our lives with them!" That first part sounds straight out of the 90's until you reach "when everything else that keeps us together conspiring to tear us apart" and you feel like you were ripped out of the colorful image of Blur's London, the Merrie Land as it were, and given a nice dose of reality. That hook really makes this song infectious!
4. Nineteen Seventeen - One of the things I love about this album is that Tony Allen gets some more to do on this record. He doesn't get shafted for a drum machine like he was at times on the first album and makes his presence known on every track (except for Ribbons.) My favorite drumming of his is on this track, especially during the impressive intro and gets the track really bouncing! "I see myself looking backwards in time today..." It feels like a lot of this record is moving in and out through different times in history at a dizzying pace. If the last song brought us back to the time of vaudeville theater, it feels perfect to slot this song in right after, themed after a time where vaudeville was at its heights. 1917 also was near the end of the first world war, when the U.S. had waged war on Austria-Hungary. Damon uses some pretty powerful imagery to invoke that time as well, noticing "a thousand white crosses in a cemetery." This whole track feels like I'm on a flying swing at an old carnival, trying not to look down on the chaos and destruction of war. The outro is really awesome too. There aren't as many long outro jams like there were on the first album, but when they show up they are grand. Those sounds of what seem like bombs falling are seriously perfect for the song's subject matter.
5. The Great Fire - If you love the weird, creepy vibes that the early Gorillaz phases gave off, you'll love this one. It's spooky and haunted, being the most atmospheric song on the album. It's like a haunted Halloween tram ride through England passing by the violence of a people torn apart from each other. The dubby beat and synths help to paint this dark picture. My favorite part is when the synths and drums kick in by the way, on the "rapturous waves" part. All the spooky background vocals really fit too, like you can feel ghosts swarming all around you even if you can't quite see them, making them all the more terrifying. Lyrically, it's not as tight as the other songs on here, but I love them for what they are. The narrative they create is one less straightforward than on other tracks, where it feels more akin to the almost nonsense lyricism of quite a few Gorillaz tracks while still being intense. "Sticky brown Chinese, coke and a dummy, metal detector, blue skies, joyous waves, alcoholism disguised with a balloon or two on Preston station!" This one could also be seen as another travel through time, moving backwards from World War I into the Great Fire of London back in 1666, explaining the "Cubs make fire on the edge of the golf course" line.
6. Lady Boston - "[There was] this beautiful sound filling all the hallways and the Gothic stairways and the nooks and crannies of the castle." That quote was from Damon Albarn, on the recording of Lady Boston with the song's choir. I could just cut off my discussion about this song here, because it's too perfectly said and resonates so closely to what I feel listening to the track. A bit of backstory might help before diving in too deep. During the recording of Merrie Land, Damon rung up an old friend of his, Gruff Rhys (whose debut album I have talked about before,) and it was Rhys who hooked Damon up with the Cor y Penrhyn male choir featured in this song. It was recorded in the Penrhyn Castle in Wales, and Damon saw a painting on the walls and named the song after finding a person in that painting that seemed somewhat different from the rest, only having the name Lady Boston to go off of. The song became the amalgamation of all of Damon's thoughts around that time, thinking about the painting and the castle and its history of Welsh quarrymen and being built off of Jamaican slave plantations. What resulted from this is what's by far the best song on the album. It feels like the next natural evolution of the Blur ballads of old, like I'm flashing back to "Best Days" or "Out of Time" in this journey through British history. "Cut to the seagull, the quarryman, the castle, the barnacles, the cliff edge, the joy." Such a perfect and creative use of imagery. Tony Visconti's recorder sounds really nice on here too, a bit unexpected when I first heard it but it's so welcome. Speaking of parts I adore, the "I'm on the back of you" refrain is so marvelous, and gives way to what is not just the best part of the song but the best part of the album and one of the musical highlights of Damon's entire career, the outro. Throughout the song, there's this gorgeous Cor y Penrhyn choir behind Damon. That alone sounds great as is, but in the outro the band cuts off entirely and keeps the choir on, singing "Dwy wrth dy gefen, dwi wth dy gefen di." That translates to "I'm on your back, I feel sorry for you." That final moment is simply magical. A true moment of togetherness in these troubled times. Is this Damon Albarn's best ballad? I would say so.
7. Drifters and Trawlers -"I've done enough today, sweet lord I've done enough today." I thought on first listen that this was supposed to be the lighthearted track working as a bit of relief after the big centerpiece of the record and a fun way to start off side B. It sounds very breezy, with rollicking guitars and what could seriously be one of my favorite parts of the album, the impressive penny whistle playing from Gerry Diver. It's like I'm on this old shipping boat sailing on by towards Plastic Beach while the seagulls swarm around me. It seems to have the makings of a great summer jam, but the lyrics are certainly a different matter. While they are very catchy, there's an overwhelming sadness to them driven home by Damon's tired vocals.
8. The Truce of Twilight - This song is Merrie Land at its most mystical. Lions and unicorns sleeping by shop doors! It's a story of fortune tellers and idols and waterslides! I especially like the horned ooser symbolism thrown in there too. Not only does this add to the tracks dark mysticism, but it also helps complete the narrative the song tries to weave. The horned ooser refers to the Dorset Ooser of 19th century English folklore, a wooden head that became associated with morality and humiliating those who acted immoral into behaving a certain way. The ooser could be the symbol for the fear that people have for going against the ways of old and looking dead eyed at the future in the process, like in the lines "glassy eyed demography" and "they're not dreaming just looking to midnight." The glassy eyed demography line also speaks to the divide between the so-called "Merrie Land" and facing reality, as if people have been too busy at this carnival taking in old British culture and thinking of how good it could be to go back to the ways of old (that may not have existed at all in the ways that they are thinking about them) instead of seeing what's really going on in the UK right now and trying to start up a conversation about it.
9. Ribbons - Listening to Ribbons, my mind drifts back in time to the beautiful A Soldier's Tale or the sadly overlooked Everyday Robots B-side Electric Fences. This songs channels all the best aspects of Damon's softer tracks. It's soothing with powerful vocals, the best Demon Strings performance on the album and some of the best lyricism I've ever heard from one of his projects. I can't even say I have a favorite line from this, there's so many to choose from. "I am the maypole, dancing with the sun," "I am the arrow stinging in your side. I will never let you go," it's all so rich with imagery and emotion! If I had to choose one, I would choose "I am the murder, falling out the sky. I wear my ribbons black until I die." The vocals on that part are the best on the album, fitting for such a powerful lyric.
10. Last Man to Leave - Everything has gone to shit. I know that this idea has been used plenty a time throughout Damon's discography, from the apocalyptic Demon Days to the emotional nightmares stored throughout 13, but few songs in his repertoire convey this kind of doom as bluntly as this. This song is in the eyes of a man who's gone insane, swinging in and out of consciousness struggling to hold on and pleading for dear life. Everything sounds disoriented, from Damon switching between a falsetto and a normal speak-singing voice to the powerful lyrics. My favorite little detail is the guitar plucking from Simon when Damon pleads "
DON'T LEAVE ME NOW!" It's the coolest guitar work on the album for how it contributes to these drunken sounding cries to make this sound like a stage play that's falling apart at the seams, just like the country Damon loves. I especially love "We like the bed that we made to lie in much better, thank you!" I saw this as the people of The Truce of Twilight responding to pleas for conversation and understanding before splitting apart from the European Union, refusing to leave Merrie Land and connect with others. "What will you do?" Damon asks as the curtains close and the scene fades to black. But as everything seems like it's falling to pieces, could there be a light at the end of the tunnel, a hope for a brighter future for Britain even with the stroppy little island of mixed up people being split apart?
11. The Poison Tree - Maybe not.
"I didn’t want to include The Poison Tree on the album. I wanted to end it with a very punk song. But we realized that The Poison Tree was taking us by surprise, it sounds like a last waltz: everybody goes home and wakes up the next morning screaming “What have I done?” Had things gone to Damon's original plan, I don't think I would have minded having a punk song to close things off. Having a powerful, uplifting happy ending like the first record or like on Humanz could have been pulled off well. But in an album with quite a few surprises under its belt, this kind of an ending is a welcome one. That's not to say that Albarn hasn't ended albums on more sorrowful terms before, the last two Blur records come to mind here. It just came as a bit of a shock for me to close things off for what could be Damon's last record for quite a while on such a tattered mournful note as opposed to the outlooks taken by the endings of Humanz and The Now Now. The piece itself is gorgeous, as Albarn cries over the lowrey organ, Paul's heavy-hitting bass line and Tony's laid-back drumming. The violins are absolutely stunning and get to me every single time I hear them. God, the piano is so great on this as well! "If you got dreams you keep, and you're leaving me, I'll see you in the next life, don't follow me." If the Last Man to Leave felt like the climax, then The Poison Tree is the falling action. Relationships are split apart as people bid their farewells to unity and go off on separate paths, never to even think about rekindling together again. The last lyric is particularly striking as well and always gives me the chills. "Of a last crusade to save me from myself." It's like an admission that maybe nothing could really save this relationship from falling apart, from "lying on a fallow field." Now that I got to talk about the song itself, one of the most emotionally impactful parts of the record is the name.
The track refers back to William Blake's 18th century poem, working on one level as another callback to old British culture alongside the dummy motif in the videos and the photos from vintage black and white films on the cover and in the lyric booklet. The real impact lies in how Damon is connected to this poem. Long ago, back through the rose-colored years of the Parklife era, Blur slipped in a track they started during the recording of Modern Life is Rubbish, but never quite finished because there weren't quite lyrics attached to it. In a stump as to what to sing about, Damon only wrote the chorus while the rest used the original Poison Tree poem for lyrics. The song, called Magpie, even sounded like a callback in and of itself to the Madchester sound of Blur's debut Leisure meshed together with what Blur had formed into around the Modern Life is Rubbish era. I had already listened to Magpie a while before this album had come out, but I didn't look into the backstory of it until the track list for Merrie Land was revealed and people pointed out the reference, instantly amazed when I saw the connection for myself. In an album that felt like it had its share of callbacks and echoes of past Damon work while still feeling like its own thing very different from anything else in his library, it was really touching to see this poem getting brought back up again. It felt like things had gone full circle, and I really appreciate that.
This album is an absolute masterwork, being not just Damon's best album this decade, but also one of the best albums he ever made, only being bested (possibly) by the first record with this group. Merrie Land is shocking, emotionally heart-wrenching and expertly crafted by some of the best minds in music coming back together to create the best artistic statement of 2018. While just having the main album by itself is enough of a blessing, those who bought the deluxe or super deluxe version were fortunately graced with two bonus tracks. While neither track would quite fit on Merrie Land, they're both fine pieces of work on their own and rapidly becoming some of my favorite Damon Albarn b-sides.
12. St. George and the Blackbird - While on first listens, I seemed to slightly prefer the other bonus track, time has slowly given a chance for this one to grow on me so much that I actually like this one even better now! It's a soothing, heavenly folk song with these really pretty keyboards alongside the acoustic guitar. Damon's vocals are in top-form here as well. Am I the only one who gets reminded a little of Stop the Dams with this?
13. The Imperial - This one feels much more laid-back than any other track on the record, with its jazzy Latin trumpets adding some energy alongside some pretty awesome drumming from Tony Allen. I feel like I could try to talk more about this, but I can't really make heads or tails of the lyrics and what they could mean, other than seeing images of high tide sandcastles and drunken politicians by the seaside. It's just an absolute jam of a track, and it works very well as what it is. It's superb as an extension of Merrie Land, even if it might not fit into the main album.
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| I just wanted to add this because it was funny and great. |
And so we have come to the end of Merrie Land, and with that, 2018 for this blog. It's been a lot of fun writing down my thoughts about music and media on here. I can feel like I'm starting to grow just a tiny bit as a writer, able to better communicate my feelings about a work and find things to say about one. I don't know what 2019 has in store for me, but rest assured I'll be coming back here to write when I find interesting things to say. Speaking of, I'm gonna be talking about some anime pretty soon here. There's been a whole year of great stuff and I can't wait to share my thoughts about what was cool! Hope you'll be along for the ride.
Later, dwi wrth dy gefen!
