Party Ends

   I don't know how I could have convinced myself that Damon Albarn could be involved in something particularly bad. Though some recent projects have been disappointing (almost every track off of the last Gorillaz album except Feel Good Inc.), Albarn never fails to produce something at the very least listen-able, but most of the time downright brilliant. Thank goodness this seems to be falling into the latter category.

   Apparently the group isn't actually called The Good the Bad and the Queen, so I guess the name is TBA, but for the time being, it works for me. With yet another super-band, the superlative aspects seem to just keep growing. With the Clash's bass player Paul Simonon, Verve guitarist Simon Tong, and a Nigerian drummer and co-founder of the Afrobeat genre Tony Allen, all lorded over in the production phase by none other than previous co-Albarn-conspirator Danger Mouse, it almost seems like so many rights that you're inevitably going to end up with a wrong. But from what I've heard so far from their debut self titled full length, released earlier this month, it's a recipe for a group that immediately has the feel of a seasoned, broken in band.  Darker, denser and leaning more toward the aesthetic feel of Damon's mother England, this is a nice departure from the futuro-techno Gorillaz dance music, and the Afro-centric Mali-Music of recent non-Blur projects.

Check out this kind of painfully boring video for the first single from GBatQ and see/hear for yourself:

Video: (the band currently known as) The Good the Bad, and the Queen - Kingdom of Doom