Blur: "Under the Westway"

There have been rumblings for quite a few years now about a possible new Blur album, beginning with the band’s brief reunion in 2009 and a single, “Fool’s Day,” released the following year.

Well…the time has finally come.

Graham Coxon announced a new record in the works, and he and Damon Albarn performed a new song, “Under the Westway,” at a recent War Child benefit show in London. It’s not a huge surprise the band is back together, as theirs was more a subtle dissolution than a massive bust-up. The real surprise is how much like classic Blur “Under the Westway” sounds; they’re clearly back to form after 13 (1999) and Think Tank (2003), the band’s last two more experimental records, which suffered some due to Coxon’s alcoholism and waning involvement. Because the core of Blur has always been the Albarn-Coxon partnership, which combined strong British Invasion-style songwriting with an adventurous spirit.

Albarn introduces “Under the Westway” by muttering, “We wrote this on the road a few weeks ago. It’s got a lot of words.” It does indeed, though many of them are hard to make out through his distinctively nasal, east London-accented vocals. From what I can detect, it’s classic Blur territory, though: a gray city on an apocalyptic morning; “everything was sinking” and “the sirens sing.” Though a line like “Today’s the day they switch off the machines” seems sprung from Thom Yorke’s brain rather than Albarn’s or Coxon’s, there’s a little love note toward the end to make it all less bleak: “Paradise is not lost / It’s in you.” Precious. “Under the Westway” is an old-school Blur ballad that might as well have been directly inspired by Bowie’s Hunky Dory (1971), an instantly catchy melody with immensely satisfying changes. Albarn plays the piano as Coxon gently plucks an acoustic guitar; it should work especially well on record.

All in all, “Under the Westway” presents an invigorated band, rare in this age of the perfunctory reunion cash-in. Whether it’s a fluke or an indication of good things not too far down the road, it’s something, and that in itself is exciting.