Abundant with chart-topping albums, number one singles, Brit and Ivor Novello Awards, blur’s canon continues to resonate and inspire through the decades. Songs such as For Tomorrow, Girls & Boys, Parklife, Beetlebum, Song 2, Coffee & TV and Tender have become modern standards, both to long-time fans and new generations of music lovers around the world who discover the band for the very first time. When blur announced their biggest ever show after eight years away, the Wembley Stadium, London concert sold out immediately, hastening the announcement of a second date alongside a string of headlining festival appearances across Europe. This summer, to mark their return, the group – still comprised of their original line-up, Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree – will release a brand new album of original songs, written and recorded in London and Devon. With cover art featuring an image by celebrated documentary photographer Martin Parr, The Ballad of Darren is blur’s ninth album and their most arrestingly intimate work to date. Working with producer James Ford, the group convened at Albarn’s Studio 13 in the spring of this year to prep for the upcoming shows. During the London sessions, the four musicians workshopped two or three songs a day in the live room, drawing on the muscle memory of shared history until they had the songs which form the album. What, to outside observers, might have seemed like a chaotic process took shape at speed as the songs alchemised into a sound that those same outside observers couldn’t mistake for anything other than blur.