Gorillaz Debut The Mountain at No. 7, Earn Third U.K. No. 1
Gorillaz released The Mountain on streaming services on February 27, 2026, and the ninth studio album arrived with a No. 7 debut on the Billboard 200. It also gave the band a third No. 1 on the U.K. Official Albums Chart.
Damon Albarn in India
Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett visited India as inspiration for the album, and that trip shows up in the record’s sound and structure. The opening song, The Mountain, features a musician playing the song on a ravanahatha with the Hindu Jea Band Jaipur.
Albarn said the album was built so that “voices can be heard and appreciated beyond death,” a line that matches the record’s focus on grief, death and the afterlife. For a band that has spent years turning animation into a working pop machine, the material pushes the project into more reflective territory without losing its chart reach.
Damascus and its return
Damascus brings Yasiin Bay and Omar Souleyman into the track list, and the song was originally meant for Plastic Beach before being reworked for this release. That kind of long turnaround is unusual even for a project that has always moved between albums, characters and collaborations.
Damascus also picked up a nomination at the 2026 Ivor Novello Awards in the Best Contemporary Song category. The nomination gives the track a second life beyond the album rollout and puts a spotlight on the writing as much as the guest list.
Hand-drawn for 18 months
The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God were turned into an animated short film made entirely by hand-drawn animation. The film took 18 months to create, which is a heavy lift for a release built around music, visuals and narrative at once.
The result is a package that reads like a full-cycle release, not just a streaming drop: a charting album, a nomination for Damascus, and a visual companion built over 18 months. For listeners, the clearest next step is simple — the record is already out, and the album’s grief-and-afterlife themes now sit alongside the numbers that will define how this era is measured.
