Gorillaz - The Fall
Gorillaz ‘The Fall’ is the latest album from Gorillaz. It was available for free from Christmas day by signing up to the Gorillaz website.
After the advent calendar style build up to Christmas, it is a bit of a disappointment. Most of the songs are very repetitive. The strange instruments, such as the Microkorg and Omnichord, don’t seem to add much to the songs. I wouldn’t have been happy if I’d have paid for it. The fact that the track list shows where and when each song was written is a nice added touch though. I’m not sure whether it’s because of the limitations of the iPad, but this album does not have the usual quirky Gorillaz feel that the other ones have had. If I wasn’t told I was listening to Gorillaz I would never have known for most of the album.
Creator Damon Albarn has been very minimalist with the lyrics. He seems to have concentrated on experimenting with different sounds, maybe too many. A lot of the songs have very similar electric sounds and just blur together. I found it hard to listen to ‘The Joplin Spider’ all the way through. It sounds like an old Sega game. The beginning of The Parish of Space Dust is quite unusual, in a good way though. It is as if a radio is being tuned to different stations. But then the song seems to just fizzle out. I’m not sure what the point of the last song is. ‘Seattle Yodel’ is basically a man yodelling for a few seconds.
There is one song that stands out from the others. ‘Revolving Doors’ could be a single, if they were planning to release one. It is the only song that the experimentation has worked for, without taking over the rest of the music. Out of all of the songs on the album this one has the familiar Gorillaz feel that we are all accustomed to. This album was never going to be Damon Albarn’s greatest work. It was written on an iPad while on tour after all. Experimentation can either go great, or very wrong. It looks like it’s the latter this time. I hope this is not the last we hear from Gorillaz, because if it is they haven’t ended on a great note.
