Somewhere in England, or maybe Iceland, Graham Coxon is crying. Blur recently announced that their hiatus will continue through the year's end, due to Damon Albarn's collaboration with Norman Cook. "I can't keep recording these shite solo records forever!" cries Coxon, as Janet Jackson's "Come Back to Me" blares in the background. To make matter worse, another Albarn side project, Gorillaz, has already hit stores on both sides of the Atlantic. The novelty group finds Albarn assuming the role of 2-D, the animated lead singer of a pack of four misfits, whose likeness was envisioned by Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett. The Automator-produced "act" is a smarmy, promotional gimmick. And it's the best Blur offshoot released to date.

As soon as the record begins, the cartoon façade fades. Even people who only know Blur as "that band who did 'Whoo-hoo,'" will immediately detect Albarn's ever-so-Brit pipes. Though early reports suggested that Albarn contributed to only a few songs, he could right be called the band's frontman; his croon can be heard on all but four of the album's 16 tracks. Dan "The Automator" Nakamura is similarly recognizable. There's no band (animated, or otherwise) making this music; it's the Automator throwing down beats, manipulating samples, and letting Kid Koala's scratches interrupt his flow. And that, friends, is why Gorillaz is a conceptual failure.

But maybe this is for the best. Nakamura's refreshing production doesn't rely on today's hip-hop skitters and squiggles for its futurism. No, what we've got here is the same brooding backpacker hip-hop that elevated the similar Deltron 3030 LP to unforeseen heights. As a result, this record reveals itself as far less disposable than its cartoon cover art suggests.

Gorillaz's best tracks exploit the unlikely, but successful dynamic between Albarn and Nakamura. On "Man Research (Clapper)," Damon wails hysterically over Dan's relentless, echoing thump. "New Genious (Brother)" is gloomy trip-hop with orchestral flourishes that wrap around the flux of Albarn's falsetto. On "Clint Eastwood," Del tha Funkee Homosapien handles the song's verses, allowing Damon a small cameo in the looped chorus. And strangely, I can think of few other samples that would compliment Del's urgent delivery as effectively as Albarn's laconic vocal haze.

The album's foray into dub-lite, "Slow Country," is Gorillaz's charming peak. A light, Latin-tinged piano playfully slides over a sunny groove while Albarn exhibits "Tender"-like plaintiveness with lines like, "I can't stand your loneliness." Despite the fact that this track is unfamiliar territory for both Nakamura and Albarn, their charismatic playfulness makes for undeniable fun.

The small-scale experimentation, though, falls flat on the record's few rock tracks. The appropriately titled "Re-Hash" is such a generic marriage of acoustic pop and stock hip-hop beats that, were Albarn to come in chanting, "Come, m'lady, come, come m'lady," it would hardly come as a surprise. The Wire reject, "Punk," suffers from an asinine formula (play a sloppy riff, clap three times, add cockney vocals, repeat) that makes each of the track's 90 seconds harrowing.

The fact that Gorillaz's closing number-- Ed Case's two-step-meets-raga remix of "Clint Eastwood"-- doesn't feel out of place could be taken as testament to how successfully eclectic the album is. But in actuality, it's a sign of the record's short-lasting, faddish appeal. Gorillaz is the definitive side-project: even at its best, it's never more than a divergent one-off stint. Albarn may occasionally succeed on non-Blur outings, but as with Coxon and Alex James' solo affairs, they only further prove that Blur is equal to much more than the sum of its parts.

Keep ya head up, Graham.

-Richard M. Juzwiak