Gorillaz are at their very best on ‘Cracker Island’ as Damon Albarn throws desperately depressing subjects into a blender and comes away with the most satisfying of smoothies. The album is colourful, full of sonic flavour and, in the case of ‘Tormenta’ featuring Bad Bunny, refreshingly exotic. If you were to show aliens an encapsulation of planet Earth’s musical soundscape in 2023, this would be it.
Bursting out of the traps with the title track ‘Cracker Island’, Gorillaz collaborate with world-renowned bassist and producer Thundercat. The album’s cult-oriented concept is laid out here with art-pop synth waves gushing as Albarn’s honest vocals fuzz through a bass groove that wouldn’t be out of place on one of Dua Lipa’s stronger singles. ‘Oil’, featuring Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, then maintains the momentum as Cracker Island’s second track. With the sonic palette already established, the mic is over to Albarn to work his melodic wizardry – it’s light work for a master of the craft but excellent work no less. Each segment satisfying, each bar saturated in personality.
‘The Tired Influencer’ to an extent takes the foot off the gas but still informs listeners of the project’s ambition to navigate the quirks and pitfalls of this “crack screen world” over an R&B beat. Using an iPhone ringtone sample, Albarn outlines struggles that any listener will relate to: “Just trying to keep my head up, but nothing real anymore”. ‘Silent Running’, though, is one of the album’s most important. Elevated by soulful backing vocals by Adeleye Omotayo, Albarn’s lyrics dig straight to the core of this album’s heart. Powerless in his battle against modern life’s distractions and manipulations, he feels a gravitational pull towards zombification and disconnection to the point that “there’s no way out of here”. “Well, I got so lost here / Machine assisted, I disappear,” he sings in another instance, and then later insulates his point with a standout refrain: “It feels like I’ve been silent running / Through the infinite pages.”
What is so enjoyable about this album, however, is how once you are invited into the world of ‘Cracker Island’, it suddenly accelerates to another level of pop brilliance. If the first four songs act as an introduction to this fictional land, then the next four reveal the party behind the trees. ‘New Gold’ featuring Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and rapper Bootie Brown delivers on almost every level as Albarn takes a well-timed backseat. On this track, Brown’s flowing delivery dances over anxious synths and one of the album’s most distinctive basslines, while Parker’s chorus delivery is exactly what you would expect to hear on one of his own records. The song has been a mainstream success since August, and, followed sharply by ‘Baby Queen’ – a standout song about Albarn’s encounter with the Princess of Thailand at a Blur show some years ago – the album reaches peak form at this juncture as the music remains interesting and the melodies go to the next level.
‘Tarantula’ follows – a song which acts as one of the album’s most heartwarming and humanising. In an album decorated with twitter-scrolls, brain junk and media spam, this catchy number beams bright; lasering through a society which sometimes only feels designed to shut down an authentically realised existence. Needless to say, perhaps, but Albarn’s ability to craft a cracking chorus for the eighth consecutive song is just stunning and even the most staunch Oasis fan should come away from this album perceiving him as the pop genius that he truly is.
When albums like this provide such consistently excellent songwriting, the standard can sometimes become normalised and underappreciated come the final few tracks. By the time ‘Tarantula’ is played out, those feelings may tempt the average listener – but Gorillaz had another trick up their sleeves. An unexpected reggaeton track with Bad Bunny titled ‘Tormenta’ swoops in at the optimum time to take listeners to a new place where they can kick back and reflect on the seven scorching alt-pop songs that preceded it. An enjoyable track in its own right for sure, but you get the feeling its main function is to service the album as a whole. One way it does just that is by whetting the appetite for the final two songs – the first of which is maybe Cracker Island’s best: ‘Skinny Ape’.
What begins as a folk song, quickly becomes a Gorillaz hit with the memorable chorus hook: “Don’t be sad for me, I’m a cartoon G”. But it’s not done there – far from it. For the final two minutes, ‘Skinny Ape’ accelerates away at light-speed, dashing through Cracker Island with a high-speed 100 Gecs-like dance beat and an Idles-style football chant of “Skinny ape, skinny ape, skinny ape, skinny ape, oi, oi, oi, oi!” It’s fun, it’s brilliant and it just about sums up the artistic spectrum that this generational group have always loved to embrace. Conversely, their final effort comes in the form of ‘Possession’ – a heart-plucking and finger-picking beauty with acclaimed American musician Beck. “Things they don’t exist and we’re all in this together until the end” is sung by both artists as an all-encompassing closing sentiment to sign off what must be a contender for album of the year.
This genre-spanning album from Gorillaz is futuristic, artistic and as good as anything they have ever released.