NME And the fools laugh loudest. Blur's rise and fall has all the comic nuances of Reginald Perrin's. Two years ago they were pop's champagne Charlies: 'There's No Other Way' and 'Bang!' had been Top 20 hits and Smash Hits had fallen head-over-suede boots for their art school oddness and blue-eyed middle-class charm. Graham wore glasses and an Oxford University T-shirt, Damon spent an entire Top Of The Pops performance grinning madly while clutching a cardboard Kelloggs cockerel. It was all too beautiful. But best of all, they had three cool members. Whereas most groups have one (The Jam), and some occasionally have two (The Kinks; The Smiths), Blur had three: Damon, Graham and elongated art school louche Alex. Not only was Alex cool, but better still, he was annoying as hell; he once actually said, "The best this about being famous is never having to raise your voice." Yeuch! How they laughed when Blur were shunted off on tour with The Jesus And Mary Chain, released a scrawling unfriendly single in 'Popscene' and started hanging around clubs drunk and unshaven. They couldn't even charm their way into Syndrome. And all just in time for the second album crisis. So imagine the horror when 'For Tomorrow' arrived, sunny-side up, as a smart-arsed precursor to a thing called 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'. Ha! Blur were back and the annoying one on bass was as smug as ever! First impressions: it looks great. A steam train zooms by on the cover, and inside there's a painting (yup, oil on canvas) of the four of them in their latest incarnation as mop-top skinheads, slumped on a tube train. Alongside this polished teak interior are the words. Oh dear. Blur are not famous for their lyrics. In the past Damon has boasted of his, erm, skill in composing lyrics on the spot, the results inevitably making Eurovision Song Contest entries seem like great works of poetry. But no matter, this time they're mostly great and (gulp) all part of a thinly-veiled concept album! For 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' is a London odyssey crammed full of strange commuters, peeping Thomases and lost dreams; of opening the windows and breathing in petrol. And you can put those idiot Suede comparisons away now. Blur have re-invented themselves in the image of their youth, sullen and suburban; as ghosts from a time when you could still be beaten up before assembly for wearing the wrong badge. It's the Village Green Preservation Society come home to find a car park in its place. 'For Tomorrow' we know about. Madness' 'Driving In My Car' with a better tune it may be, but it remains quintessential Blur. Damon, perennially bored, never stops singing, and Graham supplied his usual immaculate guitar accompaniment. It's a classic. 'Advert' is a droning burst of ennui presumably drawn from their black period of record company hassles: A nervous disposition doesn't agree with this". 'Colin Zeal' and 'Starshaped', meanwhile, are bristling digs at the numbing effects of air-conditioned life, of becoming an "unconscious man", set in the middle of the Buzzcocks' 'Everybody's Happy Nowadays'. 'Blue Jeans', though, is brill. An acoustic stroll through West London, it captures Blur between Portobello Road and The Smiths, and Damon with his guard down, confessing his dream of eternal pop star childhood: "Don't think I'm walking out of this, I want to stay this way forever." Grown men: you will weep. The side ends peculiarly with 'Intermission', a pub piano knees-up that rinky-dinks along then gets frazzled in guitars and speeded-up drums. A comment on English life losing its laziness to the soul-crushing wheels of commerce? Or studio bollocks? You decide.