Demon Days

Like the Gorillaz's self-titled debut, Demon Days goes the way of most auteur projects, its oversize idea load making for a trip equal parts peak and valley. But also like the debut, Demon Days is better than it has any right to be, featuring singles stronger than anything released under the Blur banner since, you know, that "Woo-hoo" song.

Demon Days is fantastic.

A dazzlingly clever record--great beats, brilliant production, top tunes and some of Albarn's best singing. [Jun 2005, p.106]

Funky, playful but sinister like the best children's stories. [Jun 2005, p.98]

[Danger Mouse's] stunning flourishes... help place Demon Days notches above any vaguely electronic release in recent memory. [Jun 2005, p.104]

Before you even consider the sonic and melodic innovation paraded through the album there’s so much crammed into each of these fifteen songs (without any one of them sounding overproduced or cluttered) that repeated listening is a must.

Demon Days as a whole is a thing of considerable depth and melancholia and offers rather more soul than the cartoon gimmick would suggest.

[Albarn's] sad, plaintive vocal presence elevates near-filler tracks like "November Has Come"... [and] sub-par tracks like the experimental "White Light" and... "Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head" all but beg for Albarn's persona to return. [#10, p.111]

First impressions could not be more wrong. Demon Days goes boldly against the current trend for brash immediacy and instead repays time and effort on the part of the listener.

So many names, so many influences: perhaps unsurprisingly 'Demon Days' is a dizzying, disorientating and sometimes directionless album.

It's all quite innovative and cool, and Albarn's deadpan vocals suggest a Han Solo-like seen-it-all interplanetary weariness. Too bad it lacks a track as tight and memorable as the fluke 2001 hit "Clint Eastwood" to anchor it in place.

Danger Mouse sets a consistent tone that wryly chafes against Albarn's paranoia. [Jun 2005, p.105]

The sound is more psychedeli-danceable than ever.

Spookier, blippier, and more on edge. It's also not as cohesive. [27 May 2005, p.136]

Demon Days is decidedly bleaker than its predecessor.

The music is mostly an interesting hybrid of unlikely elements and naggingly catchy tunes. [Jul 2005, p.186]

As you listen to it more and more, the music begins to make sense, the hooks come into focus and everything appears in sharp resolution, manifesting itself in a giant pop animal created for your indulgence.

The results are reason enough for Damon Albarn's other outfit to finally pack it in.

Darker and colder than its predecessor but, surprisingly, more fun. [Jun 2005, p.109]

Amazingly, only a couple of times does the broadness of what is going on get in the way or misfire... and at album's end, you can look back in wonder at how in the hell a barrel of cartoon monkeys managed to pull it off again. [#15, p.93]

It's Albarn's evocative words, compelling if understated melodic sense and subdued vocals that are the emotional center, transcending the gimmick even more than on the first Gorillaz album. [22 May 2005]

Utterly unique and frequently wonderful.

A much more consistent and coherent album, equaling Gorillaz’s high points and easily besting its shortcomings.

Innovative as it is satisfying.... It’s hard to imagine a more realized meld of hip-hop, electronica, and post-rock.

Brilliant.... This album sounds like Albarn and Danger Mouse are an inspired team. [Jul/Aug 2005, p.101]

It's [the] beats by Danger Mouse that make "Demon Days" a winner, even when the Gorillaz concept threatens to overwhelm itself with pretentious twaddle.

Get past the dark stuff and Demon Days reveals a stash of songs that are more fun than a Hong Kong Phooey marathon.

Less accessible than its eponymous predecessor, it creates a darker, less cartoonish world where hip-hop, brit-rock, electronica and Dennis Hopper monologues all seem perfectly at home.

Granted, the world isn’t exactly better off since since the last Gorillaz album, but that doesn’t mean we need to be reminded of it by a loose collaborative outfit that will never be mistaken for the Clash when it comes to political or social consciousness.

Demon Days actually is even better than its predecessor.

The record's disparate experiments are unified by an overriding darkness, the black light Albarn shines on the dancehall. It's this unusual tone that makes Demon Days intriguing long after it's ceased to be novel.

Albarn’s ability to slither arrogantly from genre to genre while maintaining his charm is truly remarkable.