“You know the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love,” pines Damon Albarn on ‘Orange County’, the gem at the heart of Gorillaz‘s ninth album ‘The Mountain’. The bittersweet tearjerker and sonic cousin to ‘On Melancholy Hill’ speaks to the soul of Gorillaz‘s ninth album. As he would later put it, dealing with death is something the Brits are particularly bad at, but not so in India where he and Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett travelled to find peace after the passing of their fathers.
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And so their cartoon counterparts too headed their focus more on “mystical music making” rather than international pop stardom. Still, bangers meet world music on this spiritual meditation on loss and moving on.
‘The Mountain’ as a full-bodied world-building affair; arguably their most rich and complete since ‘Plastic Beach’. After the Indian soundscapes of the title track provide a suitably widescreen opener, ‘The Moon Cave’ sends us off with a little funk and the Sparks-assisted ‘The Happy Dictator’ takes a playful jab at the tyrants and despots who present themselves as eternal. They should be so lucky. Peace comes as IDLES’ Joe Talbot jumps on the woozy ‘Clint Eastwood’-esque hip-hop of ‘The God Of Lying’, finding his own worth among all the doubt: “Are you happy with your housing?/ Are you climbing up the walls? / Are you deafened by the headlines, or does your head not hear at all?”
From the steady soul-rap sway of ‘The Empty Dream Machine’ to the dreamy bop of ‘The Plastic Guru’, the Bollywood rap rager ‘Damascus’ and the waltz heavenward of of ‘The Sad God’, ‘The Mountain’ is a colourful and flowing tapestry of sound and texture. As well as five languages sung – Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish and Yoruba – the world tour feel is enhanced by Gorillaz typically mighty rollcall of collabs, with Johnny Marr’s flowery fretwork weaved throughout alongside spots from the likes of Omar Souleyman, Asha Puthli, Gruff Rhys, Yasiin Bey, The Clash’s Paul Simonon, Trueno and many more.
Fittingly, there are guests from beyond the grave. Rhythm maestro Tony Allen repeats the mantra of “Oya E dide erori” on ‘The Hardest Thing’, translating to “we are ready, let’s go” and wishing the spirits on to the next realm, while The Fall icon Mark E. Smith drawls his much-missed surrealism on the ravey horrorshow of ‘Delirium’, warning the “shrunken china chief head dealer” that they’re “coming home a sinner“. Late D12 rapper Proof, shot dead in 2006 but with his vocals to ‘The Manifesto’ recorded 25 years ago, seems to be sending a warning of the trouble that found him: “No one can convince the invincible to be sensible”.
Completing the deceased choir of ‘Voices From Elsewhere’ are Dennis Hopper, Bobby Womack, and De La Soul‘s Dave Jolicoeur. Their inclusion really echoes that absence is a presence in a touching testament to how art outlives us all and how death is not the end. ‘The Mountain’ is an album that celebrates the love you leave behind, the people you touch, the spirit of giving more than you take, how we’re all the same when it’s done. As Albarn puts it ‘Orange County’: “I’m not your enemy, your atoms gone, you stand alone, and everything you gave to someone you love – that’s the hardest thing”.
Details
Record label: Kong
Release date: February 27, 2026
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