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Blur: Here's what you can expect from their upcoming album

Blur's new album 'The Magic Whip' will be released this April. It's the first album by the band since 2003's 'Think Tank.' Blur will also perform this summer in London.

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John Shearer/Invision/AP
Damon Albarn of Blur performs at the 2013 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

The band Blur have announced they will be releasing a new album – the first in 12 years – this April and will be performing in London this summer.

According to Rolling Stone, the new album will be titled “The Magic Whip.” Blur also released a video for their new song “Go Out,” which will be a single from the album. 

The band’s last album was “Think Tank,” which was released in 2003. 

Blur will play at the music event British Summer Time in Hyde Park this June, an event which will also feature Taylor Swift, The Who, and Kyle Minogue.

“It was really accidental,” Blur lead singer Damon Albarn said of making the album, according to Rolling Stone. “It was completely natural and spontaneous. I was just singing lyrically what was coming in my head.” 

The band, which also consists of guitarist Graham Coxon, drummer Dave Rowntree, and bassist Alex James, also released two songs in 2012. Coxon is fully participating in an album for the first time since “13,” which was released in 1999.

Making "Magic" was akin to “the way we recorded when we started,” Albarn said, according to the Guardian. “It wasn’t a flash studio, it was pretty claustrophobic and hot. We went in and knocked about loads of ideas.”

Blur was formed in 1989 and the band released their first album, “Leisure,” in 1991. Recently, the band performed at Glastonbury in 2009 and in 2012 for the Olympics in London.

The band was nominated in the Best Alternative Video and Best Group Video categories at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1997 for “Song 2” and was nominated for Best Breakthrough Video in 2000 for “Coffee & TV.” Blur has won various BRIT Awards, including the Best British Group award, Best British Album, and Best British Single in 1995 as well as receiving the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2012.

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