Plastic Beach

Delivered five years after the delicate whimsical melancholy of Demon Days, Gorillaz's Plastic Beach is an explicit sequel to its predecessor, picking up in the dystopian future where the last album left off, its music offering a grand expansion of Demon Days, spinning off its cameo-crammed blueprint. A common thread among these tracks is they find Damon Albarn ceding the spotlight to his fellow musicians, preferring to be the puppetmaster behind the curtain, and Plastic Beach works best when he's finding hidden strengths within his guests. The album accentuates moody texture over pop hooks, and Plastic Beach is the first Gorillaz album to play like a cartoon soundtrack — which isn't a bad thing, because as Albarn grows as a composer, he crafts richly detailed collages that are miniature marvels.