Blur Strays From Its Roots in Palace Show

When Damon Albarn and his bandmates named their group Blur, they weren’t kidding. Over the course of its five albums, the English quartet has whizzed through a succession of styles, from the Duran Duran-infected pop of its 1994 hit “Girls and Boys” to guitar pop in the manner of the Smiths to Anglo-centric pop that had some fans enshrining the group as heirs of the Kinks.

The new album, “Blur,” still pays homage to the likes of the Smiths and David Bowie, but the Rolling Stones and some of the young “low-fi” bands also join the mix: American folk, blues and country elements combine with reflective lyrics generated by life on the road and a production full of surface noise and distortion to suggest an embattled soul in search of bearings.

This shift might not bring Blur any closer to the U.S. success that’s always eluded it, but it’s an often effective artistic strategy. In its show at the Palace on Wednesday, though, Blur didn’t seem to trust that approach, spurning edgy introspection and pumping up nearly every song into a hollow, arena-rock spectacle that requires much more showmanship and charisma than the band could provide.

For all his athletic hopping and scaffold-climbing, Albarn is a standard rock-stage puppet with a good Brit-rock voice and no instinct for bringing out his inner fire. The band’s slick playing stripped away all the music’s features except its hooks, which are occasionally catchy but never close to classic.

It’s time to get back on the bus and take a close look at what they’re doing. Otherwise, “Blur” will prove to be too kind a name. “Blank” might be more like it.