With Britpop album anniversaries falling like confetti this year and next, it was inevitable that a heightened whiff of nostalgia would permeate the air and reformation records would start to trickle out. Naturally – and rightly so – Suede were the first major act to return with a work of any significance with ‘Bloodsports’ in 2013, thus laying down a marker for others to follow. It was by no means their best, but their sixth studio offering sits comfortably in the better half of their output to date; but surely, a new album of the calibre of the ones that made people yearn for your return in the first place should be a prerequisite, otherwise what is the point in reforming at all? Suede realised this and thankfully so have Blur.

‘Magic Whip’ does not match the stadium highs of ‘Parklife’ nor does it try to, but it does comfortably best their debut ‘Leisure’ and their previous album ‘Think Tank’. It’s also superior to Albarn’s solo album ‘Everyday Robots’. Father Damo won’t be pleased though; ‘Magic Whip’ surpasses anything the brothers Gallagher have released in the intervening years since Oasis’ demise. However, that is hardly surprising as Blur stopped being a Britpop band – if ever such a thing existed – when they released ‘Blur’ in 1997.

So what is so magic about Blur’s whip in 2015? For starters, it seems to be a complete accident. ’Magic Whip’ was recorded after a series of live cancellations left the band with five days on their hands in Hong Kong. Albarn and Coxon used the unexpected time to bash through a number of chord sequences and half-constructed Garageband ideas with the rest of the band in a local studio. The sessions produced a lot of material, but hardly any finished articles and the material was pushed aside while Albarn released ‘Everyday Robots’.

Undeterred by their hectic schedules, Coxon – seemingly unwilling to let the chance of a new Blur album slip through his hands – enlisted the council of producer Stephen Street to help him sift through the hours of ideas and titbits recorded in Hong Kong, deconstruct them and rebuild them into songs. The results of this reconstruction process convinced Albarn that the blueprints for a new album existed and he set about writing lyrics for the songs, before Alex James and Dave Roundtree added their own personalities to the reconstruction process.

The result is an album of British melancholy with a twist of musing on the great metropolis of Hong Kong, that pits the fear of failure against the sounds of the reknitting bones of friendship. The stop/start gestation of the record is reflected in its multifarious content that echoes ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ on songs such as Lonesome Street and ‘13’ on the guitar effect-laden I Broadcast and Go Out. However, it is on the more intricate and contemplative tracks such as There are Too Many of Us and My Terracotta Heart where Blur really come into their own. Nothing exemplifies the nonlinear approach to this album more than the about-turn into the reggae bass grove of Ghost Ship though.

David Bowie has always been an audible influence on Blur and this album is no different. There are several sonic salutes to The Thin White Duke throughout ‘Magic Whip,’ none more so than on the claustrophobic tilt of Pyongyang. It is not all-melancholic fare though – Ong Ong features Fraggle Rock-esque keys and a sing along refrain of “I wanna be with you” which will surely find a home on radio.

It may not be the triumphant return to Mockney anthems that many fans had hoped for, but it is the album that Blur needed to make, for Blur, and the album that should have succeeded ‘13’.