How amazing is it to strip away all the bullshit, and to be honest? To see an artist exorcise demons? Not because they want to, not because they’re paid to, because they need to?

That’s great art. Boring? Sometimes. Self-obsessed? Definitely. But important. Vital. Compelling.

And what’s the new Blur album? The opposite of all that. The black bats of mediocrity, the shadows of contractual obligation, the whores of babylon have come home to roost. It doesn’t sound like it had to be made. It just sounds like their drummer looked at the contract in summer 2001, realised they had to make two more albums, and then they went off and did so. We’ve got a file on you, infuckingdeed.

Just like going to work in a factory each day. This is Blur by numbers, sans ubertalented guitarist Graham, and with wunderkind vocalist Damon replaced by that soundalike from the Gorillaz who can‘t write lyrics.

The open wound that was Blurs last album - '13' - was compelling listening. But four years on, an amputated Blur present us with 'Think Tank'. The songs are about nothing. Albarn’s lyrics are as vaccous as outer space - witness the lyrical genius of 'Brothers And Sisters' :

'Sulphates, keeps you in the zoo, Monkeys turning into you, Everybody horny, Absinthe...Tempo stop the cannonball, Peanuts appears to make you walk'

I mean... What the fuck? Not even REM at their most obscure tried to fool us with this much sub-puberty bullshit. It’s meaningless. Upper-class I’ve-got-nothing-to-say meaningless wank.

Maybe the music will redeem 'Think Tank' from being a Rich Man’s Folly. Maybe not. The musical backing for the vast majority of songs is limper than a pensioner’s dick and sterilised by studio overthink and a severe lack of spontaneity. Only two songs ('Crazy Beat' and 'We’ve Got A File On You') sound as if they were recorded by anything other than one bloke wanking off in his bedroom studio with too much hard disk space.

Everything else on the album is, as final track 'My White Noise' tells you is boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.'

And the most telling lyric? 'We’re here... because we’ve got no fucking choice.'

I’m telling you now : Contractual Obligation albums are awful : artistically redundant and devoid of meaning. Download it if you must, but whatever you do do, don’t buy it. It’s a waste of money.

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