A concept album from a cartoon band transporting us to a trash land mass floating in the middle of the ocean. What larks. Damon Albarn - yes! It's him - thinks this environmental pustule will come up roses stewing in his pop juices, and it's time to test the results.

We hit the ground sauntering. The once-dubbed Blackest Man In West London lays down inconsequential beats for Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach that are nevertheless more thrilling than anything Snoop Dogg's drawled over in years. It's a slow-building introduction coming cool on the heels of the real overture, Orchestral Intro, which appears to sneak off the Monkey soundtrack. Gorillaz, Monkey, a laconic Snoop mention of "Planet of the Apes" - we're lucky Albarn doesn't pack up a couple of 1210s and mixer and hit the road as Simian Mobile Disco. Happily, a couple of chancing spoofers are already using that as a front for some staggeringly ordinary glitch-techno. But I digress.

A long album, what sets Plastic Beach apart and keeps us from the skip button is some peerless sequencing, a surprise around every corner. Well, they would be surprises if each collaboration hadn't been breathlessly telegraphed these past few weeks. Let's imagine we're coming to this fresh: Gruff Rhys's sunshine intervention on the daffy De La Soul horseplay of Superfast Jellyfish is a sugary shot in the arm; Bashy and Kano show Snoop what actually awake rappers can do on White Flag's Siamese trip; Stylo is progressively awesome even when you've been told a thousand times how godlike Bobby Womack's testifying is.

Less essential is Mark E. Smith's perfunctory turn on zippy synth skipper Glitter Freeze. And Some Kind Of Nature is, frankly, a Lou Reed track.

Away from starry showstoppers, Albarn (Murdoc. Whatever) occupies his own serene bubble on the gorgeous Broken, dusting off his best Bowie, and On Melancholy Hill is divine. Sorry, Divine. Sebastien Tellier's charming Eurovision squib. Its phrasing also tips its hat at The Beatles' And Your Bird Can Sing, but Albarn is so supernova creative you put these nods down as homage, not steal.

The final third, featuring choral/electro curio Plastic Beach, Womack's lonely Cloud Of Unknowing and the zonked-out doo wop of Pirate Jet, is a somewhat queasy drift, but there's still time to slot in the featherlight skank of To Binge. It's led by Gothenburg's Little Dragon, who earlier offer up their clear-as-a-bell synth-pop to standout track Empire Ants, meshing with alchemist Albarn (um, Murdoc, the others) to turn base tick-tock balladry into hands-up glitterball gold. This sort of fantastic restlessness is Plastic Beach's character made flesh, Gorillaz' 2D forms gone pop-up. If Albarn does his best work behind the mask, long may it not slip.