The new Gorillaz album leaked.

Im on track 4 now. "Intro" is the same bit of music that plays as the current web site's intro music. "Last Living Souls" sounds fantastic on the first listen. Like the singles, it sounds like a bit of a mish mash of seperate songs. The third track is incomplete and cuts off after 19 seconds. Track 9 seems to be missing entirely.

Seriously, this record is like "Modern Life is Rubbish" to the debut's "Leisure" in terms of quality.

PS. Thank you x 12.5

thank you.

hollerr.

http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0HVDXC3H7MI6720VOWN6O61NWC

I'm running 5.08, but I imagine one my output plugins probably messed up some of the default settings.

Can someone ysi the Doom track? Mine didn't come with it.

Getting to hear a better quality version of Dirty Harry has made the pisspoor quality of the rap a lot more obvious.

I can't believe it took so long before someone posted that.

http://s10.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0IF1VGTXD8W6C0K5EJSY1L7F6Y

but i'm waiting till the proper product drops.

i like the tension and the build up.

glad to see its getting some fine responses though ..

Can you YSI it? Gmail? Pigeon carrier? Sublimate?

Gorillaz had to have raked in a lot of cash for the automator, and I bet this one will do the same for Dangermouse.

this new record features a big group of guest collaborators, as detailed in a news release:

Ajay Prasanna, Amaan & Ayaan Ali Bangash, Anoushka Shankar, Asha Bhosle, Asha Puthli, Bizarrap, Black Thought, Gruff Rhys, IDLES, Jalen Ngonda, Johnny Marr, Kara Jackson, Omar Souleyman, Paul Simonon, Sparks, Trueno and Yasiin Bey; as well as the voices of friends and collaborators who have gone before us, including Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Dennis Hopper, Mark E Smith, Proof and Tony Allen.

I don't know about the song but this video is outstanding. Saturday mornings cartoons quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucRulNQsuYQ

yeah, this is absolutely wonderful.
kinda says something re the world we now live in when jamie h had to put out a statement that no AI was involved in the making of this video.
just received the lentincular 2cd edition which is gorgeous.
looking forward to soaking this album up.

I see another gorillaz thread was bumped recently but this one seems to be their main thread...

https://www.wnyc.org/story/gorillaz-on-how-loss-and-a-trip-to-india-inspired-their-new-album/

how loss and the trips to India influenced this album

a few tracks in and this feels like a very direct sequel to plastic beach, for better or worse

Our former poster M. Carlin is decidedly not a fan:

The album's ponderously worthy prog-bollocks introduction didn't exactly get us in a receptive mood. Because of course Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett aren't interested in making pop records any more. They're interested in making Major Statements. Where's Dennis Hopper, then (like so many of the "guests" on The Mountain, he has been posthumously sampled, thereby converting "the living music" into a mausoleum)? Oh, he turns up about twenty seconds before the end, mumbling something we couldn't decipher because his voice has been processed, multitracked and reduced to impenetrable garble.

The production on The Mountain is atrocious; hospital nightmare level, unreleasable 1983 Associates album level. So much has this cake been overegged by gratuitous dig-my-record-collection guests and the ceaseless urge to pack in so much unneccessary detail and frills that it's been rendered unlistenable. Sparks pop up on "The Happy Dictator" but sound as though they're singing twenty bathrooms away. What's the point of putting Asha Puthli and the ghosts of Bobby Womack and Plug Two on "The Moon Cave" when you can't readily make any of them out?

And there's far, FAR too much Damon Albarn, dragging the already-overburned music down with rather old-sounding pseudo-juvenilia; that is, when he isn't mourning the passing of his father, in which setting he succeeds in alienating his listeners from any semblance of empathy or sympathy. On "The Hardest Thing," which also features the inaudible spectre of Tony Allen, his grief might be heartfelt but unfortunately he is useless at conveying it to us. He whimpers like a spoilt teenager whose stash of Sherbet Fountain has just been snatched away from him - and is only just over a year away from turning sixty. Perhaps he should just have stuck to playing and concentrated more on producing.

These dirges go on, and ON. The guy from IDLES turns up to have a moan about something - can't really determine what; is it about this quarter's gas bill being higher than he'd expected? - on "The God Of Lying." By the time the aptly-titled "The Empty Dream Machine" lurched into earshot, the middleground sonic non-spread was forcing me to reach for the paracetamol, so we abandoned the record and listened instead to the splendid new album by Bruno Mars; thirty-one economical minutes of lovely, sunny, clearly-produced and wonderfully-constructed pop songs.

I recall the first Gorillaz album from twenty-five years ago. It was engaging, daft and a much-needed diversion from the increasingly miserable output of Blur. Most importantly, it was fun. Plastic Beach managed to achieve an impeccable balance between absurdity and genuine poignancy. It didn't have the words MAJOR STATEMENT metaphorically stencilled across its cover. And what right do I have to say anything about it; I didn't listen to the entire album. Well, no I didn't, because I'm getting older and don't have any time left to waste on maybe-it-will-grow-on-me-in-time tommy rot. If you don't get any kicks from a record, move on and listen to one you'll like.
But the fact that critics have unanimously drooled over what is frankly an indigestible mess of a record tells you more about critics than anything else. You want a thrilling and endlessly inventive pop album? Listen to To Whom This May Concern by Jill Scott, who's only about four years younger than Damon Albarn; fifty-eight minutes long, but none of those minutes wasted. Or to side five of Escalator Over The Hill, the profoundest and most moving fusion of Western and Eastern music that I have ever heard. And that album was nearly two hours long.

The Jill Scott is indeed wonderful.

the album's alright, it's probably one of the better gorillaz albums - at least better than the last one which was pretty forgettable. it's a return to the plastic beach approach of albarn mumbling over chintzy synth pop + 'world music' (this time indian classical music in particular) + the vague idea of hip hop (with plenty of guest rap verses) + lots of aging rock star features, and works about as well as plastic beach did - 'somewhat'. none of it really blows me away but some of the eclecticism is interesting enough - "the manifesto" is a highlight. the one with the idles guy is indeed pretty terrible and it's not even all his fault.

i think most of the objections in that review apply to the majority of gorillaz albums, and gorillaz is indeed a pretty silly project overall and has only produced one rather good album in demon days, but i don't really see the point in complaining that a gorillaz album has a million ridiculous guest features and some overwrought concept. they haven't had a proper chart hit since demon days!

Plastic Beach has a ton of good stuff as well - keep those two and the rest can go.

plastic beach is a bit patchier than demon days though and doesn't really hold together that well

i remember song machine was alright too

I feel the opposite way; I don’t remember a single song on Demon Days outside of the singles but most of Plastic Beach lies in my mind as banger after banger

Well, no I didn't, because I'm getting older and don't have any time left to waste on maybe-it-will-grow-on-me-in-time tommy rot.

This is perfectly fair but I'd say it also follows that you shouldn't waste your time writing about an album you don't have the patience to try to engage with either.

i have enjoyed this album a lot more than the last 3 which were basically collections of collaborations.
this feels and sounds like an actual album to me.
the fact that a lot of the guest vocals are buried in the mix, treated or otherwise, i think works well given the idea re ghosts/death that's a core factor throughout.

xps they're still a singles group to me. The Singles Collection 2001-2011 is a good listen and the only disc I've kept.

different folks, different strokes.
i don't have that collection.

For me the one that clicks is the self titled debut.

Mind you I was 19 when it came out.

title track of the new one is lovely

re PB, any album with top-flight guest spots from De La Soul, Lou Reed, MES and Shaun Ryder is god tier in my estimation

ryder isn't on plastic beach and idk that mark e. smith saying "where's north from 'ere" is really all that. i like what they did with him more on "delirium" on the new one, where they put his rambling over a disco groove, that's fun

Sounds like you would be a fan of Von Südenfed!
Typical me to draft the Ryder track from Demon Days into PB. But I do like “The Glitterfreeze” and clearly need to hear the new album.

I like Gorillaz but never paid much attention beyond the singles until I took my kids to see them on the last tour. I was surprised by how huge the crowd was, for one thing — they’re somehow very popular. And I thought the whole presentation was fun, the cartoon aesthetics and the big live band with all the guests. Albarn was an engagingly loose and vibey presence. Good show. Going to see them again at a festival in September.

first two albums and their b-sides comps is kind of all the gorillaz you need, which is a good amount of gorillaz.
I guess the fall has some good stuff on it.

does the fall have some sort of cult following yet?

For prosperity:

My 12yo son is a huge Gorillaz fan and has been looking forward to this album for months. He’s liked most (not all) of the singles, and he’d read somewhere that the new album was somehow linked to Plastic Beach, his favorite by them.

Here on the west coast the album became available at 9pm. He spent most of the 8 o’clock hour counting down to 9pm. We let him stay up late so he could listen to the whole thing. Finally as I’m ticking him in for bed and I ask him how it was, his lip starts quivering as he tells me it’s the most disappointing thing he’s ever heard.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Thursday, February 26, 2026 10:21 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

awww
My diehard Mitski fan daughter was pumped for the new album today but felt let down as well.

― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, February 26, 2026 10:27 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Damon's obsession with using that megaphone filter on EVERY SINGLE VOCAL he performs in the Gorillaz context really ruins these albums for me - it's a fingernails on a chalkboard thing.

― Davey D, Friday, February 27, 2026 9:46 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I do struggle to work out how Gorillaz is still a big enough thing to fill multiple arena dates across the UK; and to headline European festivals... given no obvious 'hit' for years. Is it Blur fans desperate for more Damon? Is it britpop people taking their children? Is it children? Are there Gorillaz fans who do not like Blur? Are some of the hits on the first few albums huge enough on streaming to get new generations into it? Are the agents promising promoters that if they put Gorillaz in big venues/top of festivals, they will get Blur in a few years time? MANY QUESTIONS

They seem pretty popular still, the animation they posted at the weekend has nearly 7 million views on YouTube. Who their audience is, I’ve no idea.

younger music nerds still respect gorillaz. idngi

Apart from younger fans presumably drawn to the animation and aesthetics I guess people still get interested in the revolving door of collaborators aspect, even tho they've tended to be Gen X-Y pillars and it tends to be those guests that make or break the appeal. But after all this time whatever passes for 'the Gorillaz sound' is still vague and spread thin, trying a lot of stuff on but never fully committing.

Plenty of people used to go see Pink Floyd just cos they liked the stage show productions

My geek daughter loves them, so have had fun enough when we've seen them. But they just announced for Madison Square Garden (with Little Simz and Deltron 3030) and I don't get it.

Are there Gorillaz fans who do not like Blur?

At least in the U.S., Gorillaz are massively more popular than Blur. There is definitely a younger contingent of the audience who have no idea the guy from Gorillaz has another band. My kids are both fans, despite one of them mostly being into underground rap and harsh noise, and the other mostly listening to anime soundtracks. I really think you can't underestimate the success of the cartoon presentation of the band in reaching Gen Z and younger via YouTube etc.

I was thinking the same thing - in the US, Gorillaz fans might not even know about Blur

i was first introduced to gorillaz when i was ~10 because they played the demon days singles on cartoon network incessantly to the point it was annoying. i didn't like them until a few years later but i think this was maybe secretly crazily effective marketing

i don't really get the level of love a lot of people have for them but i think i understand how childhood nostalgia could lead people to overrate them and why they still have a huge following

i think there's been a pretty clear gorillaz sound since plastic beach, broadly electropop with all sorts of other stuff grafted onto it as albarn sees fit

I'll argue the Avalanches have generally made better of their collabs than Gorillaz from 'Wildflower' onwards. Generally a richer palette of sound for both Albarn and the guests to fall back on, even with the caveat of the Avalanches having still been much more sample-reliant tho (and when not, like on the last album, they struggle) obviously, this being the trade off, far less prolific to the extent that they retained more sense of novelty and curiosity about their choices and efforts. Some tracks from 'Humanz' onwards, often the better ones really, you could mistake for more recent Avalanches perhaps too though.

What the Avalanches do is similar but I feel like their stuff goes further out there. I could see Gorillaz doing a track like "Noisy Eater" for instance but I don't think it would be as strange or esoteric. Could also mention the Chemical Brothers here, they were pretty well known for doing collabs but those tracks always sounded like the Chems in the end. Just the Chems doing different things. Gorillaz on the other hand I think try to play more to what they're getting from the guests, which I think works for them because it comes off like a distillation of everything good, same reason why everyone loved Beastie Boys back in the day, though the Beasties definitely seemed to score a lot more recognizable hits. Either way I think that sort of thing plays really well in the internet angle, especially when combined with the band's visual element, it's just a lot of stuff that people have fondness for and they do it in a way that comes off authentic and not like Ready Player One style pandering. Thats my 2 cents at least.

I could see Gorillaz doing a track like "Noisy Eater" for instance but I don't think it would be as strange or esoteric.

That is essentially Superfast Jellyfish from Plastic Beach.

I'm convinced that the cartoon aspect of Gorillaz definitely played a part in their success. Especially among younger US listeners exposed to their stuff via Cartoon Network. In a similar way that I am feel like a lot of Daft Punk's success among certain audiences in the 2000s can be attributed to Interstella 555.

the only reason i ever became involved with the world of gorillaz was cos of jamie h.
after their debut album was released they put out a request for suggestions for a possible remix album.
of course i suggested adrian sherwood and jim foetus.
as they went through the suggestions, apparently jamie h raised his eyebrows and was totally WTF when he came across mine.
(i had an insider groove throughout phase 1 given in was blamed for the 'theft' of murdocs winnebago .. )
i still would love adrian to remix their stuff of course, but the chances are rather slim these days.

From what I've seen the widespread appeal of Gorillaz is pretty straightforward, as is the reason it wouldn't be so apparent to ILX - all the collaborators make every new Gorillaz album a fairly good capsule version of the "being-into-music" experience at that moment in time for people whose primary interest is something other than music, and the ongoing cartoon narrative stuff is a strong hook for the "lorehounds" those people are likelier to be. (I say all this as a massive compliment to the formula Damon & Jamie have stumbled into and maintained, to be clear)

agreed.

I hung out in some geeky online spaces in the 00s and 10s, Gorillaz and Daft Punk were both huge in those communities, particularly with animation nerds. And sometimes fans showed no evidence of interest in other artists from the same genres/scenes.

a fairly good capsule version of the "being-into-music" experience at that moment in time for people whose primary interest is something other than music

Very nicely put. Cf. the people who snap up the tickets for a Kraftwerk show, even though they never listen to Kraftwerk otherwise.

the ongoing cartoon narrative stuff is a strong hook for the "lorehounds" those people are likelier to be.

this part is more confusing to me because it's pretty much never lived up to their ambition for it. like there's usually some concept tying the albums together and they've always wanted to do broader gorillaz multimedia projects but there's really not that much actually there

^^

this does leave more room for the fanficcer and cosplayer axes of fandom vs lorehounds ofc

and they’ve had major periods with full-time writers on staff (eg MW, CB) so there’s probably buckets of lore that got tipped out in those Flash sites but nobody will ever be able to watch them again

the one thing i wish albarn would do is make something in the vein of 13 or think tank again and unfortunately i don't think we're ever getting that again, except for the magic whip's extremely mediocre version

Orange County is great