Despite the diverse array of guests and interesting cult narrative, there isn't a whole lot that makes Cracker Island a genuine Gorillaz album. The album's bright synth pop sound assisted from mega pop producer Greg Kurstin is catchy and inviting on the surface but is incredibly dull, redundant and hollow in the center.
Even after over two decades, there's still no other group like Gorillaz. Created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett all the way back in the late 90's, Gorillaz have captured the imagination and creativity that can come from a virtual band of four fictional members, each one having different personalities and identities. After three massive studio albums, including 2010's Plastic Beach (my favorite album of that decade), they came back from hiatus with numerous projects, songs, and albums. Humanz is a larger than life comeback album that proved to be successful despite it being bloated while The Now, Now is an interesting sonic detour towards sad-eyed tropical synth pop. 2020's Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez truly shined as the better, more cohesive album from the band's comeback that has more tasteful production and plays to each feature guest's strengths quite well. Now three years after the playlist-like rollout of Song Machine, Season One comes Cracker Island, a brand new album featuring another rebrand from the band.
With themes of the typical fascination, weirdness, and obsessiveness cults are usually presented with, Cracker Island seems to be a fictional place where this inhabits, where our cartoon bandmates Murdoc, 2-D, Noodle and Russell are visiting. Sigh, if only Cracker Island would be as fascinating of a destination spot as Plastic Beach. Let's just get this out of the way, folks: I don't like Cracker Island. I don't like the way it sounds and I certainly don't get any sort of immersion, color, or off-the-wall unpredictability that I would typically get from a Gorillaz project. The warm synth pop that is drenched and saturated within nearly every track on Cracker Island is glossy, shimmery, and bright. As a result, these songs are pretty catchy and inviting, where they are destined to be played at parties, in car commercials, or even on your upcoming Summer playlist for this year. There's nothing necessarily wrong with being catchy or inviting; much of the band's best work has these exact qualities. But when you listen to this album from front to back, the production and sonics within each track sound so similarly put together and presented that it ends up sounding like one continuous mix of bland, nondescript dance pop that a DJ (or say, whoever has the aux) will play simply to be presented as wallpaper or background music to play at a party or get together. If the album cover didn't have these cartoon musicians on it and if the album wasn't billed under Gorillaz, I would've easily second guessed myself thinking that this was something else.
I'm assuming this is primarily Greg Kurstin's fault, who is one of pop's biggest producers who indeed loves the specifically glossy, often generic synthesizer but since this is under the Gorillaz umbrella, I got to put Albarn at fault too. There isn't the typical quirk or weirdness that's typically on a Gorillaz album either. It's like a sanitized or sanded down version of it. Take the opening title track and lead single, for example. It features a groovy funk instrumental along with help from bassist Thundercat. On paper, this should be fireworks! But every time I listen to this track, it just sounds flat and redundant. Catchy, sure but incredibly redundant. If you heard the first thirty seconds, then congratulations! You've pretty much heard the entire track. There is absolutely no need to give this a second listen. Also speaking of the guests, some of these should be great and they certainly look great on paper. Some work out pretty decently, like psych-pop outfit Tame Impala and rapper Bootie Brown on the track "New Gold," which is arguably the one and only song on the album that's fully enjoyable from start to finish... and it's probably because Kevin Parker provided some much needed assistance in the production. But others are either being used awkwardly or aren't being used to their fullest potential. Stevie Nicks' singing on "Oil" is simply a footnote, an afterthought. Sorry Stevie, you're great, but any number of singers could've provided the same level of melody. It's not your fault, you were only given so much to work with, I assume. I wouldn't have even guessed Beck was singing on "Possession Island" if you told me. To be fair, "Tormenta" uses icon Bad Bunny very well, almost too well... to a point where this just sounds like a Bad Bunny song and not a Gorillaz song. It's a good song, but it sounds very out of place on a Gorillaz album, even this one.
There are also some other songs that stand out but not for any good reasons. "Skinny Ape"starts out as an interesting acoustic synth folk tune but morphs into an obnoxious over-bloated breakout that sounds way too compressed for its own good. "Captain Chicken," which is included in the deluxe version of the album, is arguably the worst Gorillaz song I've ever heard. Seriously? Is this a parody? It attempts at being a goofy, silly and humorous take on hip hop a la "Superfast Jellyfish," but it falls flat on its face. It's super unfunny, dumb, and should've easily been left on the cutting room floor and forgotten until the end of time. I don't think I can even talk about the remaining tracks because there's not a whole lot to talk about. They're tracks with the same synthesized pop that I've mentioned time and time again. Unfortunately for me, Cracker Island's faults lay heavily on the instrumental and production side of things. Much of the songs at their core certainly aren't bad, nor is the songwriting most of the time. Despite the diverse array of guests and interesting cult narrative, there isn't a whole lot that makes Cracker Island a genuine Gorillaz album. There's very little quirk and oddball excitement that I get from previous Gorillaz albums and songs. The album's bright synth pop sound assisted from mega pop producer Greg Kurstin is catchy and inviting on the surface but is incredibly dull, redundant and hollow in the center. Unfortunately, I just can't get past that and as a result, I can't find much to redeem here.
My Rating: 4 / 10
Favorite Songs: "New Gold," "Tormenta"
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