InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 9

“The Tired Influencer” features the album’s
most famous guest star: Siri — you know,
the Apple assistant. A song about trying to
keep up with a changing world, you can
almost picture the 54-year-old Albarn
asking Siri how to navigate LA’s labyrinth
of neighborhoods and music trends. A
cultural chameleon, Albarn has always
managed to keep up with the times while
remaining true to himself, and this track
demonstrates that those efforts aren't
always easy. “Silent Running,” one of the
album’s strongest cuts, is a hypnotic
meditation on social media and addiction:
“Machine-assisted, I disappear.” Elsewhere,
“New Gold” is a classic Gorillaz single in its
sound and execution, pairing The
Pharchyde’s Bootie Brown with Tame
Impala’s Kevin Parker. Playing a smaller
vocal role, Albarn shines most in his role of
a curator on this song, craftily blending
the styles of his different collaborators
into something that sounds legitimately
new.
But then there’s “Baby Queen,”
where Cracker Island hits a bit of
a dip. Relying too much on vocal
layering and an over-extended
synth arpeggio to create
atmosphere, the song feels
undercooked in both melody and
structure. “Tarantula” comes off
slightly better, offering a bit more
in the way of groove and style,
aided by Bad Bunny, who delivers
an infectious vocal melody
against the lush reggaeton
production. We then move into the
record’s penultimate track,
“Skinny Ape,” which is another
standout, doing what Gorillaz does
best: taking listeners on a
wild voyage from folksy ballad territory to
a charmingly breezy (almost lazy even)
verse to straight-up synth-pop chaos. It’s
a slow burn with a strange structure, but
one that effectively coheres its disparate
parts. And it has an even stranger
inspiration: apparently born out of an
encounter with an Amazon delivery bot
(classic Albarn fodder). Like a Gorillaz
album, the track is a bit all over the
place, but it’s the kind of oddity that
Albarn so often — and indeed here —
makes work.
While it may not achieve the classic
status of high-point predecessors like
2010’s Plastic Beach — Gorillaz’ utterly
fantastic concept album about our
relationship with the environment,
disposability, and authenticity (and one
of the best records of its decade) —
Cracker Island does feel like something of
a spiritual successor. It’s quintessentially
Albarn in the way it spins anxiety and
isolation into conviviality — sailing from
ALBUM REVIEWS
one forsaken getaway to another without
forgetting that this is supposed to be a
vacation. Indeed, Albarn’s lonely tourism
may be the defining quality of a Gorillaz
album. Playing genre mixologist, he
curates sounds and collaborators from
unexpected ends of the musical map, and
yet for someone with such a global
network of friends, Albarn always seems
to wind up alone with his thoughts. On
Plastic Beach, the late, great Bobby
Womack sang of the “cloud of unknowing.”
Sometimes peace is best found not
through adventure or achievement, but
by sitting in a space of mystery and
wonder. Cracker Island ends on a similar
notion with the shantying “Possession
Island”: “The time I came to California, I
died / At the hands of the coasting queen /
Where things, they don't exist / And we're
all in this together 'til the end.” — NICK
SEIP
LABEL: Parlophone; RELEASE DATE:
February 24
22