said that the album was "apocalyptic dark pop at its finest, strangest, and most topical". Vice called the album a "British pop masterpiece", and wrote that its music "flits between UK rap, alternative rock, piano-pop, trip-hop, reggae, and Beach Boys psychedelia". The Unapologists called the album "both a typical post-9/11 political statement and mid-2000s alt-rock masterpiece". Spin described the album as a "slinky folk-disco-hip-hop-Afro-pop-punk expedition". Robert Christgau labelled the album "pop trip-hop", while Happy Mag listed it as a key work in the art rock style. Demon Days prominently makes use of string sections, which were organized under the lead of Isabelle Dunn, who formed Demon Strings for the album and its later live performances. Choirs are also incorporated, including the San Fernandez Youth Chorus on "Dirty Harry", and the London Community Gospel Choir on the album's final two tracks, "Don't Get Lost in Heaven" and "Demon Days". Albarn has said that the album is meant to be a depiction of a journey through the night in which each track represents a confrontation with a personal "demon". The album also has many lyrical themes centered on the destruction humans are causing worldwide; speaking about the track "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head", Albarn explained, "That came from a very naive idea, which is: what is going to happen when they've taken all of the oil out of the earth? Aren't there going to be these vast holes? Surely those holes shouldn't be empty. Surely there is a reason why they had all of this in. It's like bad plastic surgery, eventually it collapses." Mike Schiller of PopMatters wrote that Demon Days "[provides] its listeners not with a story arc, but a "music arc" [which] starts off slow, and honestly, not all that strange", describing the first few tracks as "[sounding] a bit like the Casioed version of a mid-'90s trip-hop album." The album's opener, "Intro" contains a sample from "Dark Earth", from the soundtrack to the 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. Release and marketing Demon Days was first mentioned in articles detailing the reopening of Gorillaz' website in early December 2004. Initially, a March or April 2005 release date was announced, but this date was later pushed back. In an article for Q in February 2005, it was reported that the album was to be titled We Are Happy Landfill. Another early title was reported to be Reject