REVIEW: Blur - New World Towers (2015, Dir. Sam Wrench)

It is fast becoming de rigueur for Britpop's pre-eminent acts to release a kitchen sink concert film. Following reasonably hard on the heels of Pulp's A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets, Blur's effort, New World Towers, intersperses a couple of high profile 2015 concerts (Hyde Park and Hong Kong) with low key, tea and biscuits chats.

I'm down with it. In my old(er) age, I'm glad these films eschew the raucous freneticism of heyday concert films. I've always had a conflicted relationship with that tendency to fall back on eye-stab editing to recreate the in-the-pit live experience. Here, director Sam Wrench and the band are more about the life experience, potting their post 'Think Tank' history through to the gestation and release of their surprise album-drop, 'The Magic Whip'.

Albarn, Coxon, James and Rowntree give their individual takes on the band's success and near-demise with the maturity of men who have come full circle. Gone is the ridiculous cock measuring and bluster. Truth be told, I've never seen Albarn quite this magnanimous. Nor has Coxon ever fronted his talent so forcefully (though forceful for Coxon is relative).

These chats go a long way towards explaining Blur's evolution on 'The Magic Whip'. The album, fortuitously built from a five day studio session while the band was stuck in Hong Kong, is stripped down, freer and comfortably introspective. Wrench and the band make much of the serendipitous events that brought the band back together as a creative outfit (something wheel-spinningly overplayed as the film progresses), as well as Coxon's balance-redressing actions in picking up both the tapes and Blur's longtime producer  Stephen Street. Apart from some cheeky comments from Albarn, there's nothing much said about Coxon's departure - though the implication is that there's not all that much to talk about anyway. All this makes for a surprisingly forward looking doco, hinting more at future potential than codifying the band's long history.

The performances, which gather oomph as the doco progresses, fold the new material into the band's setlist with surprising ease. Albarn's vocals slip at times but he works it to the sound's advantage. Old tracks gain a cohesive force (Trimm Trabb) and new tracks a reinforced sonic pedigree (Lonesome Street). Ultimately, Wrench pulls the audience into the concert vibe (the aim of any concert film) while still delivering that hanging-with-the-band-backstage experience. Of course, hanging with Blur nowadays is more at ease than it once was. I'm sure most fans will be happy to buy into that aesthetic.

I left excited. There is something thrilling seeing a band you grew up with actually getting their shit together and still being able to deliver on their talent. As Coxon says, Blur needed to put some punctuation on their work together. Whether 'Magic Whip' is a full stop or a comma remains to be seen but I think New World Towers gives every indication that there's life in the old boys yet.

★★★☆

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