Blur - Go Out

Hearing Blur talk about their new album ‘The Magic Whip’, the influence of genius guitarist Graham Coxon is obvious. A five day hardcore recording session in Hong Kong seemed like it would come to nothing before Coxon took it to the band’s long term collaborator Stephen Street and worked it into something worthy of becoming that long awaited comeback album.

It’s that chemistry - the magic, sometimes challenging, invisible line that’s always run between Coxon and frontman Damon Albarn - that bleeds right through ‘Go Out’. The straining feedback, squelching riffs and general ‘guitar stuff’ that so characterises Coxon’s style runs through like a particularly grungy stick of seaside rock. There’s no conventional festival anthem chorus, but instead a vocal hook straight out of Albarn’s Big Book of Britpop Eye Rolls.

Sitting somewhere between their self-titled album and ‘13’, ‘Go Out’ is both experimental and immediate, direct and obtuse, brilliant and most certainly Blur. Welcome back, guys. You’ve still got it.