Heave Media

Plastic Beach is undoubtedly a broad follow-up to the beat-influenced and dance-ready sounds found on Demon Days.  If you loved the latter, which boasted at least three singles that were heavy-hitters on the charts after its release in 2005, there’s a chance that Gorillaz’s latest effort will catch you off guard.  But just because the primates are behaving differently doesn’t mean you should walk away just yet.  

The album boasts collaborations with Snoop Dogg (Yes, really.  And it will leave you stunned for at least two songs), the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, De La Soul, Gruff Rhys, Bobby Womack, and the National Orchestra for Arabic Music, to name a few.  While there were equally potent contributors on Demon Days, it seems less believable now that four gorillas run this show, and more like Damon Albarn (frontman of the band Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (co-creator of Tank Girl) have laid out mannequin songs and allowed more generous, and more evident, outside influences to help dress them up.   

This transition, wherein multiple genres mingle with exceeding face time is heard on songs like “Stylo,” which is a necessary fix for those who are looking for the synth-heavy beats laced with brief rap interludes that were present in songs like “DARE.”  Albarn’s singing is smooth and a comforting throwback to the easy-to-love vocals he laid over “Feel Good Inc.”  Then out of nowhere, Womack comes in and tears the song from end to end.  Bringing years of deep soul experience married with an accessible funk flavor, he adds a dimension to the album (seen again in “Cloud of Unknowing”) that is fresh and irresistible. 

Plastic Beach has a quality that was, perhaps, overshadowed by the more liberal doses of edgy hip-hop and aggressive instrumentation that shook a lot of the tracks on Demon Days.  Ultimately, songs like “White Flag” and “Broken” feel like comfortable moves for Albarn, as if to say that he is at ease with the music he’s making—drawing more from the experimental and ethereal side of the spectrum to create equally hypnotic songs.

While Gorillaz have always been capable of slightly brainwashing me with infectious qualities all around, I find something gone awry on this album.  The songs are very blatantly repetitive on Plastic Beach, either instrumentally or lyrically, and sometimes both.   On some of the tracks, like “Empire Ants,” which resembles the “House Of Cards” intro on Radiohead’s In Rainbows, I was completely entranced and happily existing inside a world where digital primates rule.  On other songs, like “Some Kind Of Nature,” I couldn’t wait for it to end since I had to listen to “Some kind of majesty, some chemical load” fade in and out, looping for 3 minutes.   

A sense of humor remains and delivers a top-notch performance in “Superfast Jellyfish.”  This is one of the only times I am surreally convinced that gorillas are wearing jeans and t-shirts and talking to me about breakfast.  But overall, the album carries with it a conscience of the world we live in.  The “plastic beach” is not a make believe environment to match the fictitious personas of 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs, and Noodle.