Gorillaz - Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez ALBUM REVIEW

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I went through a giant Gorillaz phase in freshman year of high school. Because of that, I have Plastic Beach, The Now Now, and, most infamously, Humanz on vinyl. I have a love-hate relationship with Humanz. It is the album that got me into the group, but after hearing the rest of their albums, it’s legitimately so bad. I cannot understand why Humanz has fans. Throughout 2020, the group has been dropping single after single, and I’m quite surprised that there are more unreleased songs on the album than singles. I mentioned Humanz quite a bit because this is giving me a heavy Humanz vibe with all the features. Yes, I did like most of the singles from this upcoming Song Machine project. With the title of Season One, maybe this will be an ongoing thing. This is the apparent first instalment, fittingly titled Strange Timez. Let’s just get right into it. I’ll be shortening the title to Strange Timez.

Strange Timez is an alternative album with hip-hop, dance, and pop vibes. Every single track on this project has a feature or two, and I can already say that this is better than Humanz. What makes this different is that these songs are so much more vibrant and feel unique to Gorillaz. All these different collaborations feel very fresh and lively, even if the songs themselves are still kind of ‘meh.’ I’m gonna be totally honest with you, I didn’t LOVE any track off of this. I really only like some of these tracks, and there’s even a couple that I hate or don’t vibe with. While I did say that they felt very unique, but it just feels so wallpaper as well. I do not understand that at all, but that’s the best way for me to put this.

Strange Timez is honestly a very mixed bag to me. This review is so short simply because I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s better than Humanz, but I feel like it could have been so much more. I think the singles that kept dropping before it really killed my hype behind this album. It really sucks that I think this, though. I wanted this to be good, but it’s very meh.


5/10


Stream Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez here

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