Blur's fifth studio release, 13, has enough terrific moments to recommend it to fans of the band, but overall it's not a very listenable album and is often downright frustrating. 13 is so named for the number of songs on the album, but if you're counting the good songs it contains, they should've called it 5.

It starts off with three songs that would lead you to expect that it's going to rank among the best albums of the year. The first song is a gorgeous 8 minute folk/gospel opus entitled "Tender," that sounds like a cross between the gospel standard "May the Circle Be Unbroken," and John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance." It's a terrific song but given it's off-beat nature, it's an odd choice for the first song released as a single. It certainly bears no similarity to anything currently playing on alternative radio. The second song, "Bugman," gets the ball rolling at full Blur speed, but it's such an obvious knock-off of David Bowie's "Suffragette City" that you can sing the lyrics to the Bowie classic right along with it.

"Coffee & T.V.," the third tune, is the albums' best and I'm sure it will eventually be released as a single. It's as good a song as I've heard this year. Unfortunately, from this point on the album becomes an exercise in indulgence and messy overproduction--courtesy of producer William Orbit (Madonna's Ray of Light). Orbit gets even more carried away with his outer-space noises and unnecessary crap than he did on Madonna's latest. It would be a safer musical planet if we could send this overzealous knob-twister into Orbit.

After several meandering, experimental dirges that are all but unlistenable, the album is slightly redeemed toward the end by a handful of tunes that owe an enormous debt to Beck and recent R.E.M. Practically every song on the album is an ode to failed relationships, that evidently chronicle Damon Albarn's break-up with Elastica's Justine Frischmann. For God's sake Damon, get over the bitch. 13 finds Blur attempting to achieve something momentous and ground-breaking. Unfortunately, they only manage to break enough ground to bury themselves with.