Gorillaz is back with their ninth studio album, The Mountain, which was released on all platforms on February 27, 2026. With it comes new artwork, music videos, lore for the cartoon characters that make up the band, and a world tour, which began in Los Angeles on February 22nd.
The project was conceived in 2024 when the visionaries behind Gorillaz, musician Damon Albarn and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett’s fathers both passed away in the span of ten days. Their shared grief united the two, and during trips to India, they were inspired by the eastern interpretation of death, which was much more accepting and celebratory than the western approach. Thus, The Mountain was born, and over the next two years, Damon went to work recording, writing, and collaborating with other artists, while Jamie drew new artwork and developed the story for the fictional band members’ next chapter with a stunning short film.
The rollout started with the lead single, “The Happy Dictator” in September 2025, an upbeat, synth-heavy jam featuring sitar and flute. Over the course of the next few months, several more singles were released. These included the explosive Latin hip-hop track “The Manifesto” and the melancholic, laid back “Orange County,” in which the hook establishes the theme of the album as Albarn sings, “The hardest thing is saying goodbye to someone you love…”
The singles foreshadowed a bold new direction for Gorillaz, featuring a diverse, eclectic mix of international musical influences as well as their signature, genre-blending sound.
First and foremost, The Mountain is an album. This may seem obvious, but unlike many albums released in the past decade, this is not just a collection of singles the artist made over the past few years. It is a cohesive, meticulously sequenced listening experience meant to be heard from start to finish. The theme tying it all together is death, which is further driven home by posthumous features from artists including Tony Allen and Bobby Womack.
The 15-track album opens with the title track, “The Mountain,” featuring Ajay Prasanna on the flute. The listener is greeted with soft synths and a melancholic and hauntingly beautiful flute melody that recurs throughout the album. The first stretch of the album consists largely of the singles released previously, and the new material is just as engaging. One standout includes the dreamy, inspiring track “The Plastic Guru”, carried by Albarn’s signature vocals recorded with vocoder effects.
The track is reminiscent of the synth-heavy sounds of the group’s 2010 album, Plastic Beach. This song is followed by the bombastic, powerful banger that is “Delirium.” It begins with layered vocals making up chords, and a sad, crooning hook. All of a sudden it starts to build, with a smooth bassline and simple drums, before dropping into a hyper, dance groove with massive synth hits. From here, the album mellows out, ending on more sad, reflective songs such as “The Sweet Prince” and “The Sad God,” with the latter giving some of the most powerful lyrics of the album, including “I gave you atoms, you built a bomb.”
It is impossible to talk about a Gorillaz project without mentioning the visuals. The Mountain released with a spectacular 8-minute short film of the same name, set to the tracks “The Mountain,” “The Moon Cave,” and “The Sad God.” The film was made using 2d hand drawn animation, heavily inspired by golden age films such as “The Jungle Book.” It features the fictional band members, 2D, Russel, Murdoch and Noodle as they explore an Indian jungle, climbing a mountain and entering a psychedelic cave, before ending on a boat. Noodle turns to her bandmates and mouths the words “I love you,” a powerful sentiment for their found family, before they all jump into the water and sink, seemingly to their deaths.
Overall, The Mountain is a triumphant return to form for the mixed media enigma that is Gorillaz. I would go as far as to say it is their best work since 2010s Plastic Beach, and is full of creative new soundscapes. The songs sound familiar to their best work, but with bold new twists, and a deep, reflective message driving it all forward. Damon has tapped into something truly personal, painful, and universal on this record, and with it, reminds the listener that Gorillaz are not just hit makers, but masters of their craft.
Score: 9/10
