Blur: The Magic Whip review – friends reunited for a beautiful comeback

Blur’s made-in-Hong-Kong album, their first for 12 years, overflows with pretty songs and touchingly reveals a band now happily reconciled

There are two kinds of band re-formation. The primary is so compellingly simple that the “basic” bands that haven’t accomplished it now appear weirdly anomalous. You bury your differences, a process eased by the passing of time, the sagacity that comes with age and, regularly, the promise of a whopping cheque: if the previous 10 years or so have informed us something about musicians, it’s that few things are as effective at resolving those bitter, decade-long feuds over guitar overdubs or backstage catering preparations or the drummer’s taste in wives as the prospect of paying off one’s mortgage. Then you definitely rehearse, ebook exhibits, and knock out the hits, understanding the gang shall be so overwhelmed by nostalgia they gained’t complain even when your singer feels like a person who’s clambered on stage at a karaoke night time after six pints, wrested management of the microphone and started bellowing down it, the Stone Roses having apparently reunited particularly to show this.

The second includes truly recording new material, and appears infinitely tough, fraught with the issues: not clumsily besmirching your personal legacy, making music that identifiably matches together with your back catalogue without merely showing to pastiche previous glories. Indeed, it’s proved tough enough to convey reunions to an finish: Kim Deal left the Pixies; the Stone Roses and Pulp clearly decided it wasn’t well worth the aggro, while Jerry Dammers lately famous that his want to document new songs was among the reasons he swiftly exited the reconstituted Specials.