Blur’s Damon Albarn calls Arctic Monkeys “the last great guitar band”

Blur frontman Damon Albarn has proclaimed that Arctic Monkeys are “the last great guitar band”, saying the genre has gotten “so sterile” ever since.

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Appearing on a recent episode of the Broken Record podcast, the Britpop star commented on the renewed interest among audiences in guitar bands in recent years, saying “I feel like there’s a bit more excitement about guitar music again, that can’t be a bad thing because it got so sterile. For me, the last great guitar band would have been Arctic Monkeys and I don’t really know if there’s anything as good as that since.”

“But now there are bands with a huge amount of potential. It’s really dismantled itself guitar music and put itself back together again in a different form. You’ve got some fantastic new mutations of the genius of it.”

Asked about the acts he feels are driving this renewal, Albarn says, “I really like the band Wu-Lu, they seem to be really cool. There’s one I picked up on somewhere in the American countryside but I can’t remember his name, that’s narrowing it down isn’t it.”

“Then you’ve got bands like Yard Act who seem to be getting better and better. Obviously they are not new, but I still see them as emerging are bands like Sleaford Mods, brilliant. There’s lots of great language being used again, not this generic rock shit — I hate that, I like poets and guitars.”

Listen to the full podcast below.

Meanwhile, Blur is gearing up for the release of their ninth studio album The Ballad Of Darren, which is set to arrive on 21 July.

Check out the album’s first single, The Narcissist, below.