Returning with their fourth album in just six years the Gorillaz are back. With the title track ‘Cracker Island’ released back in June 2022 and second single ‘New Gold’ following in August, the album release has been long anticipated with alluring appearances from the likes of Stevie Nicks, Beck and Bad Bunny amongst the album’s collaborators.
A theme of digital anxiety runs through the album with ‘The Tired Influencer’ hitting more on the nose than others. With a similar air to the 2010 album Plastic Beach, we see frontman Damon Albarn’s modern day anxieties at play. Nevertheless, his lyrics seem to remain firmly rooted in the fantastical, with dreamy lines like that of ‘Oil’, featuring the legendary Stevie Nicks: “then I put my codes in the machine / but the world I found was made of faulty dreams”. The anxieties the album portrays are real, yet their tone lives up to the fantastical world in which the fictional band itself exists.
The album has an overall pop feel to it, a sound which is well suited to the band’s heavy use of synths and up-tempo drum beats. However, whilst lending themselves well to the pop genre, the Gorillaz’s latest album feels less instrumentally impactful than their previous works when thinking back to the punch of Plastic Beach’s orchestral to rap track ‘White Flag’ or the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble of ‘Sweepstakes’. Some tracks (‘The Tired Influencer’ for one) didn’t incite a second listen whereas others really stood out. The Gorillaz’s incredible legacy of genre hopping and the ability to incorporate the voices and styles of singers from Bobby Womack to Lou Reed feels somewhat lost. Where Stevie Nicks features in ‘Oil’, she seems to have little influence over the song, with Albarn taking centre stage.
Other tracks thrive however, with the influence of both Tame Impala and hip-hop legend Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde combining in the best of ways to make what is arguably the album’s best track, ‘New Gold’.
New talent is seen on the album as well as old, with another stand out song, ‘Silent Running’ featuring lesser-known artist Adeleye Omotayo. The band’s genre fluidity is still at play with the Bad Bunny bringing reggaeton to the track ‘Tormenta’ and folky guitars featuring in glimpses at the end of the album.
Cracker Island ends with a cathartic yet optimistic collaboration with Beck, with lyrics like “we’re all in this together until the end”. The Gorillaz’s seemingly never-ending imagination continues to prove itself both in their vast and impressive discography and in the release of this pop inspired album which, in the best way, does not seem to take itself too seriously.
As the band’s first album Demon Days approaches its 18th birthday, the songs on it have not grown old with the Gorillaz’s 2022 tour playing both old classics and teasing new work. Whilst Cracker Island may not live up to other albums in its entirety, it certainly gifts some incredible singles which are sure to leave a similar legacy.
Words by Ray Bonsall
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demon days isn’t their first album.