“It’s too much for me”: Damon Albarn says it’s time to “wrap up” Blur again after recent comeback

Blur frontman Damon Albarn has expressed his desire for the band to “wrap up” its activities, saying “it’s too much for me”.

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The British pop-rock group, consisting of Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree, reunited earlier this year after almost a decade, releasing their ninth studio album, The Ballad Of Darren. Last month, they completed their string of live dates and festival appearances in South America.

In a new interview with French publication Les Inrockuptibles [via Far Out Magazine], Albarn called the comeback a “beautiful success”, though he later revealed that fans should probably not hold their breaths for more Blur activity anytime soon.

“It is time to wrap up this campaign,” he said. “It’s too much for me. It was the right thing to do and an immense honour to play these songs again, spend time with these guys, make an album, blah-blah-blah.”

“I’m not saying I won’t do it again, it was a beautiful success, but I’m not dwelling on the past,” Albarn added.

And when prompted on Blur’s latest album, the musician said somewhat frostily: “I haven’t listened to it again.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Albarn also opened up about some of the projects he’s involved in at the moment, including an “opera which will be presented in Paris next year.” The musician is also set to “go to India with Jamie [Hewlett] to start working on a new Gorillaz album.”

In other news, Albarn has teamed up with Beck for a live cover of Gorillaz’ The Valley Of The Pagans during the latter’s Primavera Sound set.

“This is a song we wrote together during COVID times,” Beck told the crowd.