Blur announces new album ‘The Magic Whip’

Looks like it wasn’t too hot outside for Blur to finish that new album after all.

The band made the announcement of a new LP in a Chinese restaurant in London, alongside the BBC host (and new Apple employee) Zane Lowe. “The Magic Whip” is the band’s first LP since 2003’s “Think Tank,” and it’s slated for an April 28 U.S. release date

The band also posted the first bit of new music from the LP, a lyric video for the song “Go Out.” The song is a simmering rocker, with single-note post-punk guitar slashes that eventually swell into again-fashionable ‘90s fuzz. Singer Damon Albarn is back in his usual droll setting: He sounds tongue in cheek, bummed out and earnest all at once as he tries to rally and hit the pub: “to the local, to the lo-o-o-o-col.”

And the lyric video is even more endearing: The clip is filmed in the cheeky style of no-budget, psychedelically random karaoke filler video of a woman making ice cream.

Blur and Albarn haven’t been absent from music in recent years. Albarn released a well-received solo album, “Everyday Robots,” in 2014, and Blur headlined a split bill with the Stone Roses at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in 2013. Albarn’s Gorillaz project toured in 2010, and he also worked on several operas. Blur drummer Dave Rowntree ran for several political offices in London, including a 2010 bid to join Parliament (sadly, he lost each time)

Blur said it will return to the stage at London’s Hyde Park on June 20, but no U.S. tour dates have been set yet.

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