Gorillaz

Gorillaz

Demon Days

(EMI)

This year marks 10 years since the grand folly of Blur's The Great Escape - that over-hyped, overwrought follow-up to Parklife that showed a band buckling under their own caricature. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to Blur - and especially to lead singer Damon Albarn, who has been concentrating on extraordinary musical expansion ever since.

Demon Days is the zenith of Albarn's forays into Mali music and fatherhood - a relentless slide show of electro, funk, breakbeat, rock, gospel and The Beach Boys. It's also bulging with melodies

that snake up through the industrial beats and rhythms, like weeds growing out of concrete paving.