Album review: Stevie Nicks among the guests on Gorillaz' impressive Cracker Island

Damon Albarn and his Gorillaz cohorts are in fine form on an album that also features cameos by the likes of Thundercat and Bad Bunny 

Gorillaz, Cracker Island. 

Gorillaz

Cracker Island 

★★★★☆

Nearly 30 years since the mania of Blur v Oasis, one might think Damon Albarn had seen it all. In fact, it’s been an unusually tumultuous 12 months or so for the Blur and Gorillaz ringmaster. He set fire to the internet in January 2022 when suggesting to an interviewer that Taylor Swift “didn’t write her own songs”. Swift hit back – as did her millions of fans.

Then, at the Coachella festival in California, Billie Eilish brought him out to sing the old Gorillaz track 'Feel Good Inc'. Albarn hadn’t looked so stunned since gazing out at the pogoing masses when Blur played 'Girls and Boys' at Féile 95.

Amidst the palaver – as Albarn might have called it in his zip-up, mockney prime – and ahead of a Blur reunion this summer, Albarn has somehow carved out space to make a new record with Gorillaz, his 'cartoon' project that began as a collaboration with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. New and also back to basics. That may sound surprising considering it features cameos by Thundercat, Beck, Stevie Nicks and Bad Bunny. And yet, notwithstanding the starry guests, Cracker Island is Gorillaz at their most pared back since their self-titled debut in 2001.

The tone is wistful. But that dreaminess is paired with ominous lyrics. Consider the title track, where the narrator talks of joining a cult that will make all his troubles fade away (“On Cracker Island it was born/ To the collective of the dawn”).

As well as his Gorillaz project, Damon Albarn is also reputedly getting back together with Blur. (Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty)

Albarn has always used Gorillaz as a collaborative tool – sometimes to the detriment of the music. With 2020’s Song Machine, for instance, you were never unaware of big-name guests such as Peter Hook of New Order and The Cure’s Robert Smith. With Cracker Island, Albarn is front and centre throughout. He ropes in Stevie Nicks for backing vocals on 'Oil' but essentially it’s all him – as is 'New Gold', a psychedelic epic which features Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker.

With the Blur reunion en route, there’s a danger of a new Gorillaz album feeling like an afterthought – a place setting ahead of his busy summer. Cracker Island is actually one of Albarn’s best work in years. It’s tightly focused, brimming with melancholy and heartbreakingly catchy – a gritty bombshell from pop’s biggest cartoon band.