:: Think Tank

Blur

Blur’s long plays usually have a stand out track; a radio special that makes you want to buy the LP. Then you get it home and the rest of the album ends up being quite colourless. Their latest album, Think Tank, is one of those, without the radio special. The work is more of a compilation, pulling together an unsettling array of tracks that sound a lot like an amalgamation of B-sides and demos. This album isn’t going to do for Blur what ‘Song # 2’ did, alas, with segues into electronica that frankly don’t work, like ‘Crazy Beat’. I doubt the album will do anything good for Blur. That said, if you like all the old stuff, then this album still has plenty of Blur-esque stuff reminiscent of their early non-single material. ‘Ambulance’ is almost catchy enough for the radio. Maybe one of the stations that caters to the indie crowd. But ‘We’ve Got a File on You’ is one of those unnerving, screaming tracks they invented the program function on your CD player to bypass. Perhaps the album is political in nature, but it doesn’t seem to be that listenable by these ears.