Blur will release The Ballad Of Darren, their first new album in eight years, on July 21 via Parlophone/Warner Records. The Brit-pop group shared the record’s lead single, “The Narcissist.”
Blur – Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree – recorded The Ballad Of Darren with producer James Ford in London at Albarn’s Studio 13 and at his makeshift studio in a barn located in Devon. The 10-track album is the band’s first since 2015’s The Magic Whip and ninth overall.
Regarding The Ballad Of Darren, each of the members of Blur shared statements:
“This is an aftershock record, reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now,” Albarn stated.
“The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention,” Coxon stated. “Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.”
“For any long-term relationship to last with any meaning you have to be able to surprise each other somehow and somehow we all continue to do that,” James stated.
“It always feels very natural to make music together,” Rowntree stated. “With every record we do, the process reveals something new and we develop as a band. We don’t take that for granted.”
Blur will perform in Alban, Coxon and Rowntree’s hometown of Colchester, Essex tomorrow, appearing for the first time at the Colchester Arts Centre. The show kicks off a brief run in the United Kingdom before the band sets out on tour across the rest of Europe in the coming months.
Listen to “The Narcissist” below:”
The Ballad Of Darren Tracklist
- The Ballad
- St Charles Square
- Barbaric
- Russian Strings
- The Everglades (For Leonard)
- The Narcissist
- Goodbye Albert
- Far Away Island
- Avalon
- The Heights
