The Gorillaz released their new album, “The Fall” on April 19. To sum it up, it’s a mix of good and bad.
The first song off of their album, “Phoner to Arizona” is very techno and high energy. It could easily be played at a school dance and everyone would be on their feet. The second song, “Revolving Doors” is the complete opposite of the first. They have strange lyrics: “I feel that I’m paused/ By all the bills, I seem to run in/ On a foggy day (Revolving door).” In the song, “foggy day” sounds like another f word that shall not be named.
“Hillbilly man” also takes a slowed path but is still a great listen. In this song, it is very easy to hear the individual instruments, which really brings the beauty to the song. The song does speed up and get a tad more interesting with weird voices.
Their next song, “Detroit,” brings back the techno but in a terrible way. The song repeats the same three beats and is best to be avoided.
“The Fall” picks back up with their song, “Shy – Town.” The song is another slow one but it does have interesting background music. The music sounds like something you would hear in a sci-fi movie on a space ship.
Their “Little Pink Plastic Bags” song has weird noises. I would classify them as a wolf howling or wind whistling. The song is much slower than some of their other ones, and the lyrics are bizarre. They actually do talk about the plastic bag a lot in their lyrics “there just little pink plastic bags/ blowing on a highway alone/ they don’t know where they’ll go/ they just gonna float out.”
The album only gets stranger with “The Joplin Spider.” The songs starts with two people talking on a radio and then there are sounds similar to white noise on a TV, then like a “Star Wars” battle scene. Talk about crazy.
“The Parish of Space Dust” does indeed involve a space mission but it also involves mentioning Texas every three seconds. Strange. The song sounds like a mix of country and techno.
The album gets much better with “The Snake in Dallas.” It does start off weird but it gets better and has some very nice background music. “Amarillo” does make the album so much better. It sounds like a slow 80s song as it begins. Lyrics say “I got lost on highways./ But don’t ask me where I’ve been/ or what I’ve done./ Oh Lord send me transmissions,/ Forgive me for what I’ve become./ The sun has come save me./ Put a little love into my lonely soul.”
The new Gorillaz album is very interesting and demonstrates their music ability. It is a mix of really good and some really bad to the point of avoiding those songs. I would recommend buying only the songs you find you like on iTunes.
Gabbrielle Joseph is a Copy Editor for “The Patriot” and jcpatriot.com.