Watch the way I navigate hahahaha....

This sure as hell ain't Josie & The Pussycats. Gorillaz has grown from a sideproject from Britpop royalty Damon Albarn to being bigger and more influential then anything his band has done before. If "their" (their being relative, this is really Albarn's show with guests flowing in and out) first self-titled album was a darkly funky experience geared to those who can discern the difference between "comic book" and "graphic novel", their/his second venture, Demon Days, is a full-blown realization of the concept act as well as the concept album.

In the course of 14 songs we're blown through an apocolyptic ruin where four "characters", 2D (the most "Albarn-ish" one), Murdoch, Noodle, and Russell Hobbs venture through isolation ("Last Living Souls") and lawlessness ("Kids With Guns") with a combo of backbeat and Lou Reed-like deadpan delivery. Things pick up a little (well, beatwise, though not in happiness) with the beatnik-on-heroin of "O Green World", and the funky and violent "Dirty Harry", a sequel of sorts to their last album's "Clint Eastwood", strutting a children's chorus over an old-school technofunk beat, like if Afrika Bambaataa himself with presiding over a devilish wake.

Then of course is the sucker punch of the set, the addictive groove of "Feel Good Inc.", one of the most different big hits of the year, pairing Albarn's Britpop influence in a dark backdrop against the un-flowerpower norm of De La Soul in support. Seemingly two whole songs meshed together, it works to being even better than the sum of its parts. From there "El Manana" continues the retro-yet-futuristic (almost like old-Depeche) navelgazing, which bleeds into the neo-blues romp "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead". "November Has Come" really portends the future, giving us a glance at what would become Gnarls Barkley, with Danger Mouse producing the album and MF Doom (Cee-Lo) rapping on the track. The tracks start getting trippier, with the rap exercise "All Alone", the thumping toss-off riff-rocker "White Light", and the dancy "DARE", with Albarn falsettoing with female backup and Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and more recently alcoholic sop fame throwing rants like a guy about to be thrown out of the pub. Then talk about trippy we get a spokenword track from Dennis Hopper on "Fire Comes Out Of The Monkey's Head", a title right outta Apocolypse Now. Closing the album are actually two melancholy but optimistic tracks, the bouncy intro "Don't Get Lost In Heaven" going into the closer "Demon Days", bringing back the choir to drive the point of "carrying on after the ruin" home.

If you're lucky enough to have the "Special Edition" version of Demon Days, you're given a toss-off B-side "The Swagga", but as well as the video and makings-of of "Feel Good Inc." as well as some interactive features that really reinforce the visual aspect that enhances the music so much. I wish the proposed movie of this would've been carried out on here. Even so, as a work of music itself, Demon Days is one of the most innovative albums of last year, and hopefully a harbinger of a continued career of this "sideproject".

Grade: B-
Best Cuts: "Feel Good Inc.", "Dare"
Weakest Link: "White Light"

Demon Days hit #6 on the pop album chart & #1 on the electronic album chart.
"Feel Good Inc." hit #14 pop, #18 adult top 40, #1 modern rock, #4 dance radio, & #2 in the UK.
"Dare" made #87 pop, dance club play #4, #8 modern rock, #4 dance radio, & #1 in the UK.
"Dirty Harry" hit #6 in the UK.
"Kids With Guns/El Manana" made #27 in the UK.

To buy Demon Days, you can go to sites like here and here.


And here's the awesomely beautiful video for the single "El Manana" below.