he debut album by Gorillaz was one of my favorites from last year. Admittedly, it was one of the first records I heard after emerging from a dark period of listening only to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and the Smashing Pumpkins, so my opinion may be slightly biased. I know what I heard though, and the album was hugely inventive, lively music. G-Sides, a remix EP that features five new songs, sounds like a tired...um...rehash, and a mostly uninspired one at that.


For starters, the EP is an unabashed cash-in on the success of "Clint Eastwood," but Damon Albarn could have salvaged the project if he had chosen the tracks better. The record starts out with a remix of "19-2000" done by someone named Soul Child, who seemingly just sped up the tapes and lowered the bass, leaving a boring shell of a song, with no funk, swagger or personality. The other remix of "19-2000" is a shamefully standard club track bearing no resemblance to the original, and, on top of it, the same, tired beat goes on for seven ungodly minutes. On the other two remixes, Albarn strips the original songs of all their interesting qualities and replaces them, quite systematically it seems, with boring, sterile pap. The beautifully expressive Spanish singing on "Latine Simone," for instance, is bumped in favor of a dull, deadpan English translation sung by a mildly interested Albarn. "Clint Eastwood" is, in turn, ruined by another no-name called Phi Life Cypher, who upsets the song’s balance of dark instrumentation and whimsical rapping by substituting the vocal track with some faux-dramatic, apocalyptic nonsense. These remixes are all a heartbreaking shame, especially when compared to the sheer vibrancy of their original incarnations.


Luckily, a few of the new songs are quite good. "Faust" carries a great groove, drifting along like a dream... It’s breezy and atmospheric, unlike the awful "Ghost Train," which has the Gorillaz trying to imitate R.L. Burnside, laying on thick the soulful funky like it’s a heavy bug repellent. By far the most remarkable song on the EP, the closing number "12D3" is a quiet ballad that would probably sound more at home on a Blur record. In the context of the rest of The G-Sides, however, it is absolutely necessary.


It seems the Damon Albarn’s stuck in a rut with this side project. He’s recycling his material over and over, even going so far as to release an all-dub version of the original album. Just write some new tunes, man, and stop trying to be so dark. You’re bumming out the party.