Andy Gill on albums: Blur - Blur Reprise 9362-46236-2

Loudly heralded as the pyre upon which their former Britpop selves have been ritually dispatched, Blur certainly takes some getting used to, though it's questionable whether even familiarity saves it from being an underwhelming experience.

Supposedly reflecting the influence of American lo-fi types such as Pavement, the musical surface of the album is dirty and pitted, deliberately roughly finished compared to the user-friendly lustre of their previous records. The lyrics, meanwhile, are more personal and introspective than the surface observations of Parklife and The Great Escape, as Damon Albarn seeks to come to terms with the pyrrhic victory of celebrity.

It's not a pretty sound: "Beetlebum" is by far the most readily approachable song, and though its numb solipsism seems to shun overt interest, it at least carries the ghost of their former pop sensibility. Once it's out of the way, things fall apart badly, firstly in the form of "Song 2", a grunge wail whose very title encapsulates the group's current anti- pop stance, then the hoarse whisperings of "Country Sad Ballad Man", a token attempt at the country-slacker style of Palace and Smog that relies heavily on the sad twang of a jew's harp.

That's the problem with Blur: it all seems so token, from the hardcore thrash-bite of "Chinese Bombs" to the plodding noise-scape of "Essex Dogs". There's no consistency to the songs, which seem more readily definable by what they're not (chirpy mockney Britpop) than what they'd like to be (57 varieties of alternative rock).

The better tracks are those that, like "Beetlebum", play most directly to Albarn's new despondency: the trudging "Death of a Party" accurately evokes the suicidal emptiness of PR party life, and "Strange News From Another Star" is hauntingly contemplative. But for the most part, the sound of Albarn's voice struggling to be heard through the fog of disconsolate organ in "Theme From Retro" is more indicative of the tenor of the album.