#The black counterpart can also be ambiguously brown too its the same concept except you dont really know. you just know theyre darker 😭

[shjiyemis]

Imma say this.

If you are a white/non-black artist who's particularly hyperfixated on depicting an interracial (white/black) ship/romance where the white partner is small, submissive, and infantalized and the black/brown partner is large, dominant, and heavily masculinized or coercive. Imma assume you're some kinda racist.

[interesting-blog-name]

Gorillaz - Demon Days Review

The concept of a band like Gorillaz was always, to me, a bit odd. A virtual band with fictional members and plot seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but I now realize it’s a nice way to set them apart from any other group. As they are not real, tailoring the story behind the band is a free canvas for Damon and whoever else works in the creative process. To insert myself into the world of this band, I chose to start with Demon Days.

The first listen I gave to this album was terrible, as I was super tired and listening to it felt like a chore. This, combined with the fact that on the second listen I enjoyed the record considerably more, has left me wondering: how much of my opinions on records are products of immediate emotions and how I feel when listening to an album, regardless of whether or not I actually like it? Can I dislike an album just because I’m angry at something else, or the other way around? Looking back at reviews I wrote just months ago, I already feel differently towards them, and this left me thinking about why I review in the first place. How do I know if I like something for myself, or because of what other people think? I honestly don’t know, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I should judge an album by what it tries to be, how well and clearly it does it, how it impacts me, and how good it sounds; keeping in mind that this is not my job, nor is it something I’m an expert on, at all, only something I do for fun.

Something else that sets the band apart is their lack of a central genre. According to Spotify’s algorithm, Gorillaz are an alternative hip hop and art pop band, and to Wikipedia, the album is alternative rock, dark pop, alternative hip hop and trip hop. While these labels somewhat fit, the band feels more like a working ground for their real-life musician counterparts, Damon, the featured rappers and singers, and the producers behind their music. Due to this, the album is somewhat hard to describe objectively, as some of the songs merge elements of whichever genre they feel like to create something new.

The title of the record describes it very well; Demon Days is an ode to the present ails the world and its inhabitants are going through, from climate change to war to personal hurt. A few detours do take place, mainly the tracks that contain features, as they tend to distance themselves from the central theme to provide fitting and surgical rapped verses. The exception to this is the fantastic verse by Booty Brown of The Pharcyde, who paints a vivid, heavy and well-crafted picture of a soldier’s day-by-day in the track Dirty Harry (“I change your whole location to a pine box six under. Impulsive, don't ask why or wonder. Orders given to me is strike and I'm thunder. With lightning-fast reflexes on constant alert from the constant hurt that seems limitless with no drop in pressure.”). On the flipside, the tracks November Has Come, with the masterful wordplay in the two verses by MF DOOM, All Alone featuring Roots Manuva’s fast but hard to understand flow, and the hit Feel Good Inc., don’t have a heavy focus on their messaging, but are still very well put-together, with the band’s instrumentation featuring the rappers perfectly, and nice vocal melodies by Damon in Feel Good Inc.’s verse and the tracks’ choruses (except for the way too rudimentary and awkwardly-delivered “all alones” on the track of the same name). The instrumental in the band’s biggest hit is very indicative of why it became a hit in the first place, you simply can never forget that bassline and everything else going on in the song.

The instrumentation goes from classic rock to synth-heavy pop, to a mixture of the two, seemingly at random. Kids with Guns, O Green World and Every Planet We Reach Is Dead seem to do this best, with the former’s natural blend of acoustic instruments and light electronic sounds, the latter’s catchy riffs, mixed with the computerized white noise underneath, an O Green World’s weird, raven-like noise and grimy guitars sections separated from the synth section, which sounds like the theme for a side-scroller. That, coupled with Damon’s lo-fi singing and the vocal harmonies on top of it, make for a great track. For the more one-sided instrumentals, Dirty Harry definitely takes the cake, getting groovier and groovier to culminate at Brown’s verse, when the strings come in over the rapping, and the bass stands out amongst it all, to create this very epic and grand moment; the only problem I have with the track is that the verse seems to be mixed a little too low.

On the opposite side of the more synthetic instrumentations, there are tracks like Last Living Souls and DARE. The former, the first song you hear in the album, is not nearly a favorite. The vocal melodies are off-putting and weirdly sequenced, they never seem to hit quite the right note, and the instrumentation is a bit too idle for comfort, as the whole track feels like it lacks solid ground; maybe the bassline isn’t as powerful as some other cuts. Apart from that, I don’t like how the song progresses into its outro, as to my ears it sounds like the band just pull out any instrument they want and clam it when the track is ending just for the hell of it, something I feel repeats, albeit more lightly, in Every Planet We Reach Is Dead’s unnecessarily long outro. Out of a sudden there’s a piano, violins, 2D is screaming in the background, it’s just not it. As for DARE, along with Feel Good Inc., I knew the song long before I decided to listen to the album, and I always considered it a fine track, one that you just can’t keep from dancing to, but in the context of the album, I can’t understand why it’s there (no pun intended). The track doesn’t really go anywhere with itself nor the album, and Shaun’s contribution is really only notable because of his infamous live performances of the song. It is a black sheep in how dark it isn’t, and I’d say it doesn’t belong.

Unfortunately, the album feels as if it loses its composure after the track All Alone, and lets go of a streak of impressively built tracks. Immediately after comes the track White Light, easily the worst in the album, with fictional bassist Murdoc whispering “White light, alcohol” over and over again, over some grunge-like distorted guitars, and a sudden heavenly intermission in the song. It isn’t something I want to hear, in short. After that is the already-mentioned DARE, and then the outro of the album commences with Fire Coming out of the Monkey’s Head, a parable narrated by actor Dennis Hopper over a hip hop influenced instrumental, at times interrupted by Damon and an acoustic guitar, delivering something of a bluegrass tone to the track. Next is the thematic sequel Don’t Get Lost in Heaven, a song I find unnecessary to the progression of the album, as the messaging is somewhat ambiguous and repeated, and the choir and angelic instrumentation isn’t impactful, or at least not as impactful as in the outro, Demon Days, where the guitars incorporate a dub sound under a much better sounding choir, delivering a positive message on how the eponymous demon days are temporary, and to look on the bright side of life, send off the album in a nice, light tone. What kills this song for me is what I think is the worst vocal performance in the album apart from Murdoc in White Light, and that is Damon’s weird, high-pitched squeals at the start of the song that are impossible to understand; if it wasn’t for them, the outro would have been almost perfect, as I think the violins work much better here than anywhere else in the album.

As far as concepts go here, the lyrics are solid. I like how personal the songwriting gets to the problems the Earth faces, on songs such as O Green World and El Mañana (“Summer don’t know me no more, he got mad, that’s all”), but it isn’t anything crazy or eye-catching. Songs like Last Living Souls don’t make a lot of sense upfront, and many times the vocals are also hard to understand; I don’t think I need to touch on White Light and DARE again. And speaking a little on the parable, I personally really like the idea of having a narrated story to close up the project, but it unfortunately gets dragged down a bit from the following tracks, and the ending of the album ends up a little bloated and uneventful.

I feel this album has a good concept backing it – even if it doesn’t stick to it as best as it could – superb guests, nice but sometimes clustered production, enjoyable vocals and song topics, but unfortunately, it gets really past its prime on the last 6 tracks, and falls hard from a streak of very enjoyable songs. I will certainly check out more of their music in the future.

 FAVORITE TRACKS: Dirty Harry, O Green World, Feel Good Inc., November Has Come, Kids with Guns

LEAST FAVORITE TRACKS: White Light, Last Living Souls, Don’t Get Lost in Heaven

 6.45/10

 “O green world, don’t desert me now. Made of you and you of me, but where are we?”