Will Thornton reviews Gorillaz’s latest single
With 80mph winds hitting Exeter, fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, and dogs and cats living together, there can only be one thing causing these apocalyptic phenomena: Gorillaz has come out with a new phase.
After the release of their bloated and messy album Humanz, and the forgettable and bland follow-up The Now Now, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are back after a two-year period of meta twitter accounts and documentary making with their next music project Sound Machine, styled as a series of episodic music videos in which the virtual band will release a variety of collaborative songs one track at a time.
Slowthai’s punk vocals… are a great fit alongside the dreamy and blissful instrumentals of the track
‘Momentary Bliss’ is the first of these releases, and is a collaboration with British rapper Slowthai and punk rock duo Slaves, and to me the song feels like a breath of fresh air for a band that had lost the spark of the times of Demon Days and Plastic Beach, and is a massive improvement from the past two albums. What stands out to me in this track is actually Albarn himself as the lovable singer 2D, whose irreverent and charming vocals are scattered throughout the song, bringing life to the virtual character in a way we haven’t seen since the early days of the band. The features on the song are great too, particularly Slowthai’s punk vocals, which are a great fit alongside the dreamy and blissful instrumentals of the track.
All in all, I really liked ‘Momentary Bliss’, and I am more than excited to see how Song Machine develops over the coming days, and hopefully this track signals a new era for the band, as I am far from ready to see the end of the Gorillaz.
