Gorillaz should not be relevant anymore. A mixed genre virtual band founded in 1998 should have gone the way of rap rock and "Kill Osama bin Laden" Flash cartoons. The fact that their new album Plastic Beach is so good defies the very laws of pop culture. If the loose musical collective had made a record that sounded like their first two, I doubt anyone but old fans would even be interested. The album they actually recorded isn't a major departure by any means, but it's also not a rehash of things we've heard before. Instead, it's a confounding mix of old and new, a simultaneously fun and meaningful exercise in collaboration and ingenuity.

Plastic Beach gets off to a slow start. "Orchestral Intro" smacks of the "because we can" attitude that compels so many pop artists to throw a symphonic piece on their albums for some unknown reason. The only purpose this first track serves is as an indication that the proceeding album is going to be a down-tempo experience, that the party music Gorillaz produced a decade ago isn't going to be a major feature for the next hour.

"Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach" is a more proper intro to the album. Guest Snoop Dogg applies his trademark slow rap to a backing track that recalls the pre-fame grooves of Daft Punk. The following track, "White Flag", is the first of many really strong songs. British rappers Kano and Bashy provide rhymes for the mix of Persian strings and Goa beats.

Damon Albarn's contribution to Gorillaz has always been an odd but vital one. His distinct voice and impressive ability to fellow-travel with hip hop continues to save the band from an otherwise inevitable "Alternative Rap" purgatory. Albarn's disconnected poetics keep tracks like "Rhinestone Eyes", "Stylo" and "Broken" out of labels and genre corners.

Gorillaz may be more concerned with a sense of melancholy and irony on Plastic Beach than on previous albums, but that doesn't mean they aren't still having fun. "Superfast Jellyfish" is hilarious and deceptively clever, especially in how its chorus actually sounds like it was inspired by advertisement jingles.

Plastic Beach does occasionally grate, just not for long. I really wanted "Glitter Freeze" to be a good track, if only for the sake of guest performer Mark E. Smith of The Fall. If it had some more variety it would probably survive its dentist drill melody. As it stands, "Glitter Freeze" sounds like what rockists in 1998 said all electronic music sounded like. Lou Reed's turn on "Some Kind of Nature" fares better. It's not the album's most exciting track, but it's a nice break from the blippy, rappy rest of Plastic Beach.

The majority of the album's second half meanders in and out of a surreal haze. The title track is like The Pet Shop Boys via Ween and it features Mick Jones and Paul Simon. Re-reading that sentence, I realize just how delightfully bizarre Plastic Beach is. It's the sound a bunch of artists doing things just to see if they work. Since the album took approximately three years to record, I'd say what we have in the final product are all the experiments that resulted in good music. I'm curious about all the noodling around that didn't make the cut.