Superstate - Superstate

You never really know what you’re going to get with Graham Coxon. Over eight solo records, several soundtracks and now this - a hyper-conceptual album and accompanying graphic novel - the Blur guitarist has veered between wilfully uncommercial abrasiveness, joyful pop hooks and everything in between; on ‘Superstate’, he takes another left turn. The most wide-reaching release to bear Coxon’s name (or not - ‘Superstate’ is technically the name of the project), these 15 tracks dip into loose funk struts (‘Only Takes A Stranger’), disco ebullience (‘The Astral Light’), ominous dub tinges (‘Bullets’) and moments that are almost indefinable, like ‘The Ball of Light’’s bass-rumbling robo-futurism. With a cast of guest vocalists (including, at times, versions of Graham’s own doctored voice), the result is something innately more grandiose than a traditional album; even without ‘Superstate’’s visual aid, the record propels you into its dizzying, sci-fi-indebted world. And though modern dystopias are ripe for the plundering right now, ‘Superstate’ lands at the more adventurous, idiosyncratic end - Graham Coxon’s naturally antsy pen lending just the right amount of discomfort to the atmosphere.