Blur, Blur- Tim Mohr

With the first single, "Beetlebum," a gentle piece of Beatle melancholia, Blur seem to have made only slight adjustments to the formula that has made them a platinum act in Europe and the UK. But the album tells another story: Blur have dropped their cynical facade, their third-person narrative style, and their lilting combination of Kinks, Madness, and Small Faces.

After "Beetlebum," which takes on a different feel in the context of the album, comes "Song 2," a sure hit but completely different from Blur's earlier chart successes. Loud, fast, perhaps a charged sister of "Advert" from Modern Life is Rubbish, "Song 2" shows Blur moving toward Elastica or Ash with an affection for heavy New Wave material.

"M.O.R." (a New Wave version of Bowie's "Heroes") and "Chinese Bombs" are also in this vein, insistant guitar and bass, distorted vocals, and a brash chorus that carries the song. Unusual for one of the leading Britpop bands, there are touches of unmistakably post-Sonic Youth guitar work.

Looking to other key points in Blur's new manifesto, "On Your Own" constructs a ballad using a healthy dose of Chemical Brothers-esque noise, slowed down to fit this context. Lyrically and texturally, this song has flourishes of middle-period Blur, though the shouted, group-sung lines are new.

Blur could in some ways be described as more "American" in feel, from the Matthew Sweet "Beetlebum" to the Dinosaur Jr psycho-cheese-ballad "You're So Great," to the Beck or Beasties phat bottom end on "I'm Just A Killer For Your Love." But then again, the song closest to Parklife or Modern Life is probably "Look Inside America," an ironic, though not bitterly sardonic, look at the habits of U.S. residents.

In the end, however, descriptions of any one new direction are unfounded. Basically, Blur seem to have gone into the studio without the "Let's just make another Parklife_" attitude that made The Great Escape less than thrilling. That means a variety of new sounds from Blur, as detailed above, but also leaves room for touches from the past, like the typically Blur ballad "Strange News From Another Planet."

Blur, then, has an extremely wide range of material - from the Fall to Portishead - most of which works. "Theme From Retro" sounds like a disposable easy-listening influenced outtake from The Great Escape, but most of the other songs show Blur trying new stuff with a remarkably sure hand.

And best of all, the tone of removed disinterest has disappeared from their work. No longer are they stars deigning to sing about detestable characters (with whom, they assured us, they shared much empathy because of their affinity to working class culture), but rather a band setting out to make a new album, past success now understood as enjoyable but no longer as separating them from ordinary people. This is most obvious in the return to first-person lyrics, signalling that they realize their own impressions and emotions are no longer over our heads.