Photo Credit: Jamie Hewlett. Artwork of the band Gorillaz, September 2025.
Virtual band Gorillaz released their ninth studio album on Feb. 27, proving to be their most adventurous album yet.
The new album is titled “The Mountain” — an English translation of the title originally written in Devanagari.
The project is an amalgamation of every piece of music the group has created thus far with an unexpected influence from a genre of music rarely found in the Western world: Indian classical music.
What led up to the release?
Gorillaz, an English virtual band created by comic book artist Jamie Hewlett and Blur vocalist Damon Albarn, have been creating music under the unique pseudonym since 1998. Their claim-to-fame songs “Feel Good Inc.” and “Clint Eastwood” spawned rapid popularity due to their combination of Britpop and Hip-Hop.
The new album’s first utterance came from Albarn shortly before his 2023 Coachella performance.
“We’re gonna make [music] somewhere we’ve never even been before—a whole different cultural landscape,” Albarn said.
Shortly before a planned trip to India, both Hewlett and Albarn experienced the loss of direct family members — tragic incidents that would come to play thematically on the album itself. Therefore, much of the messaging on the album revolves around the prospect of the afterlife and dealing with overwhelming grief that follows alongside it.
The two continued to build on themes of loss by including cut vocal takes from late artists on the album. This involved late artists like David Jolicoeur from Hip-Hop group De La Soul, Mark E. Smith from post-punk band The Fall and the celebrated drummer, Tony Allen.
On Sept. 3, 2025, Gorillaz performed a portion of the album at the Copper Box Arena in London as part of their “House of Kong” live-show experience.
Phones were strictly forbidden, with any source of video or audio from the event being completely lost or simply nonexistent. Nearly all resurfaced videos from the performance were wiped from the internet, giving the project an incredibly mysterious allure for the band’s fans
“The Mountain” is the Gorillaz’s most adventurous album to date
The album opens to the self-titled track, “The Mountain” — an interlude that is almost completely instrumental. Featuring a bansuri flute played by flautist Ajay Prasanna and a sitar performed by musician Anoushka Shankar, the album is introduced on a very pleasant note.
Being positioned as the third track on the project, “The Happy Dictator” is perhaps one of the project’s highest points. The lead single, featuring acclaimed pop duo Sparks, is most akin to the Gorillaz’ signature bread-and-butter synthpop style.
Kara Jackson, the third U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate, sings on the chorus of the track “Orange County.” Lyrics such as “You know the hardest thing / Is to say goodbye to someone you love / That’s the hardest thing” echo the album’s theme of grief and directly address the loss experienced by Albarn.
“The Manifesto” includes a rap verse from Proof, a deceased founding member of hip-hop group D12. The track also features a verse from the Argentinian rapper Trueno, spoken entirely in Spanish.
The album’s last song, “The Sad God,” incorporates a verse from artist Black Thought, a member of illustrious Hip-Hop group The Roots. His dense lyricism combined with the climactic instrumental music makes the track a near-perfect closing to an esteemed experience.
Gorillaz took a great risk with “The Mountain,” and, in turn, gave fans and critics alike a reason to stay attached through the band’s multi-decade career. Gorillaz not only built upon its preconceived image in this album, but expanded its sound across barriers that very few artists have before.
