A week ago, Gorillaz apparently debuted a whole new album during their phone-free show in London, which fans only learned about through setlist.fm after the fact. It turns out, though, that we didn’t have to wait long to find out more about the album, as the virtual band — the brainchild of Blur frontman Damon Albarn — announced the new album’s title and release date today.
The Mountain is due on March 20th, 2026, belying the group’s initial 2025 release vow, and will feature appearances from Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash, Anoushka Shankar, Asha Puthli, Bizarrap, Black Thought of The Roots, IDLES, Johnny Marr, Jalen Ngonda, Omar Souleyman, Paul Simonon of The Clash, Yasiin Bey, and more. The band also released the album’s first single, “The Happy Dictator,” which features Sparks, along with a visualizer punctuated by WWII-era aesthetics and lyrics captioned in Devanagari. This lines up with one of the accounts of the album’s sound online, which promised, “The album was heavy on Indian tunes. The orchestra was quite large: four strings, four backing vocalists, three Indian instruments, etc.”
You can listen to “The Happy Dictator” above.
The Mountain is due on 3/20/2026 via Parlophone/Warner. You can find more info here.