Brow Beat

Blur Tweak Their Sound on the Mournful “There Are Too Many of Us”

Damon Albarn doing his best Liam Gallagher impression.

Still from YouTube

When Blur announced The Magic Whip, their first album in over a decade, fans immediately scoured new single “Go Out” for signs of a shift in musical direction. But there was little to parse: The song is a simple, effective, guitar-driven rocker, one that displays little departure from the Britpop sound of the band’s heyday.

Not so with The Magic Whip’s second single, “There Are Too Many of Us.” The track is a mid-tempo dirge that features a military beat, blunt stabs of orchestration, and lyrics that lament overpopulation. In other words, it’s not like anything Blur’s done before, and its psychedelic doom-and-gloom is actually closer to Albarn’s work in the Gorillaz or supergroup The Good, the Bad & The Queen. It’s unclear if this sound will pop up on the rest of the The Magic Whip; the album is out April 27.