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Breaking a hiatus even longer than their cartoon kin in the Family Guy cast, Gorillaz return to action with this worthy follow-up to their self-titled debut. Flesh-and-blood major-domo Damon Albarn -- joined by sound manipulator Danger Mouse, who fills the trainers of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura -- takes things in some intriguing directions this time around, with a considerably less sunny mood. That's evident on tracks like "Kids with Guns," on which Albarn rails against, well, practically everything he sees in the (decaying) world around him, and the misty "Every Plant We Reach Is Dead." The cast of characters is even more wide open this time around, with cameos by the Pharcyde's Booty Brown -- who holds down the funky center of the "Clint Eastwood" sequel "Dirty Harry" as he's bombarded with chirping children and electronic ephemera -- and De La Soul, who go a long way toward launching the Daisy Age revival on "Feel Good Inc." The oddest guest of all is Dennis Hopper, who brings the full scope of his Blue Velvet bizarritude to the spoken-word interlude "Fire Coming Out of a Monkey's Head." Albarn has said that he used Demon Days to exorcise some of his own demons, and that shows, but not to the exclusion of beats you can dance to. David Sprague, Barnes & Noble