Damon seems to have a real soft spot for soundtracks these days. The 'Ordinary Decent Criminal' work brings his total to four, and he seems to have found it a very good way of channelling some of his work that may not quite fit the ever changing Blur style.  It starts off moody and dark with Damon's collaboration with Robert '3D' Del Naja from Massive Attack.  3D's vocal contribution is small, although you can hear some Massive Attack influences in the overall atmosphere of the track.  There are some clever samples of dialogue from the film, but the track is mainly instrumental, with Damon occasionally chanting the refrain of 'One day at a time, sweet Jesus...'' over the top.  It's probably the track that takes longest to get into, and definitely shows a hell of a lot of potential, but it seems to set off on a journey and never reach it's destination.

An improvement is track two, a Damon solo 'Kevin On A Motorbike'.  The track is a Dylan-esque guitar lead toe-tapper, not totally dissimilar to 'Country Sad Ballad Man' or a toned down version of 'On Your Own'.  It's a personal favourite of mine, and very accessible.

'Chase After Gallery', is an under a minute long score piece, nothing much to mention really.  It is a shame that not all of Damon's score is included, because it would be a lot more welcome than the other tracks on the LP, which no band seems to have put all of their talent into.  The non-Damon parts of the album, to a Blur fan at least, seem like wasted space begging to be filled with Damon tracks.

Many would have heard penultimate track 'Bank Job' included in last year's 'South Bank Show' on BBC2,  memorable for Damon losing his temper at the musicians for not playing maybe as well as they could.  Well, they definitely seem to have sorted themselves out, as this track is excellent, smooth, and has a riff that will hammer around in your head at all times of the day.  Proves that despite 13's strange experimental noises, Damon really does still have the knack of writing infectious tunes.

Probably the track most comparable to recent Blur is the closing 'Dying Isn't Easy'.  It's an antidote to Tender, where the 13 track is optimistic about life and love, 'Dying Isn't Easy' is resigned and forlorn.  Damon's words are simple and heartfelt 'You left me just when I needed you' seeming for a minute like some of the most intelligent lyrics he has ever written. The London Community Gospel Choir make another appearance to very good effect.

Different in every way to his work on 'Ravenous', the soundtrack is well worth buying even if you have to sift through dull tracks from Bis and Brian Ferry to find the real gems.  What we really want to see is Damon channelling some of this effort into Blur, because if he can, the next album really promises great things.

Tom