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Blur -
Leisure
(Album
of the Month)
Reviewed by
Select, October 1991
 And guess what: they were right. It is
special.
The four Blur boys have guaranteed
themselves a hefty leg-up in the being-taken-seriously
stakes with the thrills they've carved into the grooves
of 'Leisure'. And you can be reasonably sure they're not
about to keep shtumm on the subject.
If you had them down as just one of many
dilated pupil combos riding the baggy surf, you need
to hear this album. If you think the backwards guitar
solo on 'There's No Other Way' is as weird as they're
likely to get, you need to hear this album. If Damon
Albarn really winds you up, you need to hear
this album.
It's a 12-track affair, and all three
singles are on it - 'She's So High' and 'There's No Other
Way' open sides one and two respectively, and 'Bang' is
whacked down early on side one. But that's not a raw
deal, because, one, 'Leisure' is well above average album
length at around 50 minutes, and two, the other nine
songs possess such (to borrow the title of one of them)
'High Cool' that you'll be too busy grinning and dripping
in your T-shirt to operate a stopwatch anyway.
Blur are stars with their guitars, it's that
simple. Graham Coxon (come on, man, into the light, let
the audience see you) plays such a crucial part in this
album's success that he can simply be declared the new
Johnny Marr now...except that Marr was never as crazily
bluesy as 'Bad Day', as witty with his gadgetry as
'Repetition' or as downright Hendrix-like as the final,
unfollowable 'Wear Me Down'.
And Alex James, man of bass and eccentric
character, wrestles the sacred word "bassline"
from the techno wilderness and reclaims it for the bass
guitar: sheer bliss for the woofer contingent, and hark
how funkily this pale white chap connects with even paler
drummer Dave Rowntree.
With such confidence oozing from every fret,
the only surprise is how downbeat a lot of Damon's words
are - we've got him all alone on the most important day
in his calendar ('Birthday'), shagged out and all at sea
('Bad Day', 'Wear Me Down') and gawky and tongue-tied
('Fool'). His stated intention of writing words that
neither insult nor indulge the intelligence of his public
appears to whittle each lyric down to about ten buzz
words, or three main hooks. Not bad thinkin since every
line, as a result, sounds like it's a chorus.
And with uncanny harmonies galore, more
"oohs" and "aahs" than the entire
Swedish National Pornographic Film Library could boast
and a truly wonderful six-minute psychedelic happening
called 'Sing' at the end of side one, 'Leisure' is just
about ready for your exaltation as a pop classic.
This, in short, is one of those happy
occasions when the hype is dead right.
(5/5) David
Cavanagh
Typed
up by Veikko's Blur Page
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