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

© 1991 Select

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