Blur – Out of Time Review

Those garbled screams at the beginning of Out of Time give almost too much away. It only comes through after hundreds of repeat listens, when you know the song beat for beat and get as much from hearing it as you did the first time, but there is a strangled sense of emotional misery at play. The final album of Blur’s first run, Out of Time is a remarkable high on an album overstuffed with shortcomings made by a lack of Graham Coxon influence. He had steered them one way and the other, both successes with their self-titled effort and 13 to follow. But his step back from Blur, the sense he was not welcome in the studio, is at play for Out of Time and the wider Think Tank project. That so-literal title is played out well through this one, though.  

Damon Albarn never uses it as a hint of conclusion to Blur, but it does weigh on the mind now the band has been tucked away, perhaps for the last time after The Ballad of Darren. We are coming up to a year without the band having performed live, and yet Out of Time is still featured on the setlist. How could it not? It is as defining a song for Blur as Song 2 or Parklife, yet it takes a far slower tone, a moderate tempo struck by a lack of formidable guitar efforts from an absent Coxon. That is the game-changer here, and while Out of Time is a masterful recording from Blur, the success is not because of a lack of one member or another. It comes from the sincerity heard within, a song operating as a flicker of reflection on Coxon leaving the band, but more as a message of environmental and cultural decline.  

Perhaps that is why Out of Time remains relevant and exciting. Those declines are still ongoing. What works so well for it is how straightforward it is, how it navigates through those opportune moments for an emotional blast or instrumental hook, but staves it off. It is a forgiving and refreshingly stripped-back track, particularly after the excess exorcisms provided by Coffee and TV and Tender. After that is where it becomes a problem. Those B-Sides tied into the release of Out of Time, where the band tries to be a bit brighter, experimental, and has the wheels come off. Money Makes Me Crazy is a bit of a dull effort, but nothing nasty. Fellow forgotten rip, Tune 2, feels like a light knock at Song 2. Not just in the title alone but in its complete contrast to the harsh instrumental edge their self-titled rip has.  

Out of Time and the wider Think Tank project remains thoroughly moved by Albarn and the Gorillaz experience. It was starting to seep into the Blur side of things. No wonder the band called time here. Out of Time remains one of their best songs, on its own, that is. With the rest of these releases, it feels like a bit of an excess single. Don’t Be is an interesting brass invention which falls short of anything brilliant, but at least it has some vocal work from Albarn to elevate it that little bit further. Considering the length of The Outsider, it is a shame nothing too remarkable comes, but Think Tank always had the feeling of decluttering the archives. Everything and anything feels like it was released on this album, and that is no bad feeling, it just means the likes of Out of Time are saddled with some slightly underwhelming material.