‘The Ballad of Darren’ by Blur Review: Reflective British Rock

Blur has had long stretches when it seemed more or less broken up, and the four members—frontman/guitarist Damon Albarn, lead guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree —have a famously acrimonious relationship. On releases like 1994’s “Parklife” and 1999’s “13,” that tension boiled over into classic albums that tackled English life from a perspective alternately satirical and sincere. And during this run of top-shelf material, which ran through 2003’s “Think Tank,” the group continuously experimented, veering from lean, lo-fi rock to orchestral pomp to electronic-tinged grooviness. Though Blur was a cornerstone of Britpop when the scene was at its height in the mid-’90s, unlike most of its peers from those days it kept pushing forward until the band decided to move on to other things for a while.

Over the past 20 years, Blur went from being Mr. Albarn’s primary outlet to something he revisits only when the mood strikes, and those times are met with joyous celebration in the U.K. Just over a week ago, the band sold out two nights in the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium in London. But in the U.S., this important and adventurous rock band has never quite broken through commercially. Blur’s highest charting album here, 2015’s “The Magic Whip,” hit No. 24, which happens to be the same rank as the lowest charting of the eight studio LPs by Gorillaz, the project Mr. Albarn oversees alongside visual artist Jamie Hewlett. And several of the latter outfit’s records have hit the Top 5. The ninth Blur album, “The Ballad of Darren” (Parlophone/Warner), out Friday, arrives just five months after the most recent Gorillaz LP, “Cracker Island,” offering an intriguing point of comparison.

This is Blur’s simplest and most direct full-length release—it’s light on sonic flourishes as it nails the basics. And if the sense of risk is in short supply, Blur compensates with ace songwriting and impressive economy. The opening “The Ballad” has a lovely piano line and a tempo that suits its title, and the song itself is in part about growing older and adjusting one’s expectations. Mr. Albarn sings of what happens when “the ballad comes for you,” using the quieter and more reflective form as a metaphor for death, but doing so with a wink.

It’s a funny and bittersweet sentiment—one the following track, “St. Charles Square,” upends completely. It is the album’s only out-and-out rocker—a fairly mellow one by the band’s standards—and it has an appealing punch, with a nicely jagged guitar refrain by Mr. Coxon. “Every generation has its gilded poseurs,” Mr. Albarn sings, in a line that would have hit very differently if he’d delivered it in 1995. Then, it might have been a sarcastic jab at a jealous hater. Now, it comes across as funny and knowing, from an artist long past needing to care what anyone else thinks.

Many lyrics on “The Ballad of Darren” are whimsical and weary in equal measure, hinting at friendships and romances that seem to have crumbled, but doing so from a place of isolation. Others shift between scenes of political collapse and broken relationships, but Mr. Albarn delivers such heavy sentiments with an eye for the poetic and a good dose of wit. “Where are you now?” he asks at the start of the stately “Russian Strings,” and later sings, “The tenement blocks came crashing down / With headphones on you won’t hear that much.” On the sixth track, “The Narcissist,” Mr. Albarn begins by saying he looked in the mirror and saw “so many people standing there,” and he seems to be looking back on his failures and pumping himself up to do better next time. He delivers fractured and delightfully amusing lines over a chord progression and harmonic structure that approach perfection—each delicate musical turn is both comfortably familiar and surprisingly new.

The guitar work from Mr. Coxon is striking and efficient throughout. On “ Goodbye Albert, ” he slides between a distorted lead line that breaks apart as it unfolds and a gaseous drone that brings to mind the dreamy atmospherics of Robert Fripp. And the closing “The Heights” has a final section that builds and builds until it seems like it’s going to explode in a fireball of noise; then it cuts out suddenly, and, just like that, the album is over. “The Ballad of Darren” is a brief record—10 tracks, 36 minutes—and at many points it sounds disarmingly similar to “Cracker Island.” Both releases avoid extremes, tone down the experimentation of the past, and showcase the power of a well-crafted song above all. While it’s hard not to miss the dazzling cockiness of Blur at its turn-of-the-millennium peak, the band’s commitment to craft this far into its existence is its own marker of confidence.

—Mr. Richardson is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Follow him on Twitter @MarkRichardson.