Blur's 13

Listen to clips from this CD at Planet of Sound.

Dealing largely with singer Damon Albarn's breakup with his longtime girlfriend, 13 finds Blur reassembling its sound with the help of techno wizard William Orbit. Jagged rockers like "B.L.U.R.E.M.I." seem to have been mixed upside down, with drummer David Rowntree's watery beats anchored by Graham Coxon's fuzzy, layered guitars. Coxon is everywhere on 13 (he even painted the cover); Orbit has helped the guitarist forge a new, hi strain of lo-fi--call it "mucky"--and the two seem pretty eager to show it off. But their studio prowess brings mixed results. In the Syd Barrett-esque "1992," Coxon latches onto the perfect drone and makes it a symphony, but the feedback noodlings that close "Bugman" remind us why we often want to kill Thurston Moore.

Despite Coxon and Orbit's prominence on 13, Albarn remains Blur's principal songwriter. His witty social observation is one of the band's trademarks and provides a common thread between disparate albums like Modern Life is Rubbish and The Great Escape. Brilliant pop melodies and creative arrangements have landed the band where it is today, and when Albarn chooses, he can still write hooks to make Noel Gallagher bawl. The lamenting "No Distance Left to Run" soothes even as it wrenches, and the elusive chord progression in "Coffee & TV" continues to surprise well past the first listen.

Ironically, the personal nature of 13's subject matter obscures Albarn's usual cleverness. Instead of lucid, detached character sketches, the lyrics are opaque and often unintelligible. But the music on 13 can't be about much more than itself, making it a fitting end to an increasingly self-obsessed millennium. (EMI)

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