Ah! Ah! Hi everyone, Backthony Packtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Gorillaz album, The Mountain.

Here we have the newest full-length album from legendary virtual band Gorillaz, co-founded by producer, singer, songwriter Damon Albarn of Blur fame, as well as animator/illustrator Jamie Hewlett, almost 30 years ago at this point. And The Mountain here marks the project's 9th album, and it is a doozy for several reasons.

Because this record not only sees Gorillaz going out independently on their own Kong label, nor can you boil this album down to the impressive display of the animated "Moon Cave" short, the visual component to this album that saw Hewlett and a team of animators essentially trying to recapture the essence of '60s Disney magic, with numerous references to their original Jungle Book animation, kind of using its story and characters as an an allegory for the existence of Gorillaz itself.

But for the purpose of this review, I am mostly concerned with The Mountain as a musical experience, and what it's saying in this latter stage of Gorillaz's discography. Because if anything, The Mountain is a record that really shows Gorillaz's age, but in all the best ways, as we're obviously long past the salad days of the project's first couple of records that really were game-changers, pioneering albums. And even Gorillaz's second breath that saw highs such as Plastic Beach and lows like Humanz, feels kind of like a distant memory at this point, too.

So now, as a result, on The Mountain, we are left with a lot of memories and reflections, not just on what has brought Gorillaz to this point, but also on the state of the world currently. Of course, this album is also said to have been inspired by a couple of trips to India that Damon and Jamie took together, too, which obviously speaks to this record's many musical nods to Hindustani music, which are typically paired with some very lavish orchestrations, too.

And The Mountain is a record that also features a lot of commentary on lost loved ones, and wrestling with the void that their passing has left in your life, while contemplating things like an afterlife. This manifests, of course, in a lot of posthumous features throughout this album, from a variety of voices who have played pretty essential roles on many a Gorillaz song in the past, be it either Dennis Hopper, Mark E. Smith, Bobby Womack, Tony Allen, D12's Proof, who recorded with Gorillaz back in the early 2000s when they and D12 did a track together. There are even some small vocal drops from De La Soul's Trugoy interlaced throughout Black Thought's bars during "Moon Cave".

And from what I understand, this isn't even every single reference back to a past collaborator that Damon wanted to do on this record. This is really like, you know, what he had on tape, what he had leftovers from, and what he had sort of approval for.

Now, pulling further on the string of mortality and whether or not there's a life beyond this one, The Mountain also features a lot of reflections on God and spirituality, occasionally questioning formal religious hierarchies, political ones too, in favor of mindsets and beliefs and systems that are more abstract and free and personal.

This all comes through on some very direct songs like "The Happy Dictator", "The Plastic Guru" as well, whose commentary on snake oil salesmen and false gods makes its intentions pretty clear. And then also the closing track too, which I read as the laments of a god who is just basically disappointed with all of these things and gifts that were given to humanity, only for them to be misused or exploited: "I gave you white sails to reach the sun / I gave you atoms, you built a bomb. / Now there is nothing and I have gone / No more mountains, no more song / No more prayers sent up into space / Only screens left to see your face."

And this is all done over a very sad, theatrical chord progression that honestly, in some ways, is kinda giving, like, 90s Radiohead, with a beautiful reprise melody toward the finish of the song that, you know, recalls the album's opening track, which is a very nice touch, of course.

So, The Mountain is clearly a record that has a lot to say and more than enough symbolism, guest features, and experience to get it all done. In fact, Damon Albarn has kind of confirmed that this record is a spiritual successor to Plastic Beach in a way. And I don't entirely disagree with that assessment, especially given the conceptuality of this record, the level of focused commentary it's bringing to the table, and also the many futuristic neon-colored synth palettes that make up the majority of the meat on this album's bones.

That really is the backbone of the album, even though the many washes of droning sitars and killer flute runs brought by Anoushka Shankar as well as Ajay Prasanna are just incredible. Still, these colorful synth sequences and groovy bass bits are what make up the majority of "Moon Cave", especially during Black Thought's verse. In its best moments, this track is endlessly funky and pretty much specializes in the same kind of musical worldbuilding that Gorillaz is known for.

And speaking of classic Gorillaz, we also have "The God of Lying" featuring IDLES, whose jaunty synth chords and sinister vibes make me feel like I'm listening to the eerie echoes of classic tracks like "Clint Eastwood", but now being repurposed for a new era. And again, it's a familiar formula, even down to allowing Joe Talbot to pretty much kind of perform in character in a fashion.

Now, with that being said, one could argue that what Gorillaz are doing here on this track doesn't even hold a candle to what they've accomplished in the past. And yeah, I would say the results are kind of mild too. But there are plenty of more songs on this LP where I feel like the project is living up to the very high standards that have been set in the past, like with the electrifying "Delirium", which is this explosive electro epic featuring some shouty and, uh, very throaty vocals from the legendary Mark E. Smith. It's a complete showstopper in this tracklist, and pretty much "Glitter Freeze" Part II.

Then there's "Damascus", which is one of several cultural mashes throughout this tracklist, which finds common ground between not only a very fun feature from the one and only Yasiin Bey, but also dabke master Omar Souleyman.

But as great as some of the more energetic highs on this album are, I think The Mountain's most significant moments come up during its saddest songs, like with "The Hardest Thing" and "Orange County" back-to-back, which is the kind of catchy, light, breezy but bittersweet synth pop that makes me drawn toward groups like The Postal Service. Of course, Gorillaz have dabbled in this same vibe before, too, in the past, but I think now, given the song's reflections on death and saying goodbye to your loved ones, it makes this track hit even harder.

But maybe the most emotionally powerful moment on this record comes in the form of "The Empty Dream Machine", which sees Damon singing as 2D in a fashion that I think is like really his most confessional he's ever been, while sort of, you know, performing as this character. It's an eerily beautiful ballad about what you're left with once those you care about most are gone, and features these very odd falsettos and layered pitched vocal harmonies that are very sort of like unsettling and off-putting, really mirroring the exact feelings that are fueling this song to begin with.

Now, I will say, even with all the praise that I do have for this album, there are some low points for sure. "The Manifesto", for example, which has a very dazzling first leg with its combination of what sounds like Latin pop rap and some kind of big-budget Bollywood soundtrack with some verses from Trueno over it all. Now, this is a combination of sounds and vibes that really have no business sounding this good together, but somehow Gorillaz just make it work.

However, where this song falters for me is in its kind of multi-phase shifts, going from this to a posthumous verse from Proof, which does have some lyrical highlights and a really impressive flow to it, but damn if it doesn't feel at least a little tacked on. And also, given the themes of this album, it's not really surprising that The Mountain would take a pretty dour and forlorn tone.

However, this does lead to some tracks in the final leg that I don't think add that much to the overall runtime, like "Casablanca", for example, as well as "The Sweet Prince", which I would argue is the most underwhelming track on the entire record. Its melody, its structure, and its instrumentation are just so faint and underwhelming, and the track just feels like such a drop after such diverse, bright, and versatile highlights like "The Shadowy Light". Not to mention the closing track, to go back to that again, is really like the perfect kind of, you know, tie a bow on it finish that you could want from an album like this.

So yeah, overall, The Mountain, I would say, is a record that does have a bit of bloat. It does lose some steam toward the finish, and there are some posthumous but well-intentioned features that feel a bit like fitting a square peg into a round hole. There are some points where this record falls, but there are many more where it soars. And I still think this album is arguably Gorillaz's most ambitious project yet.

Between all of the broader social and spiritual commentary, plus the many conscious and subconscious meta-references back to past songs and collaborators. Also, the multi-phase structures and huge orchestrations. Which don't suck the visceral energy or pop appeal out of these songs at all. And let's not also overlook the successful cultural exchange going on with this record too, which is probably one of the best elements of the record and just goes over without a hitch, when honestly it could have come across so tacky and so paper thin, but instead lands in territory that is so clearly tasteful that there's no reason to second-guess its intent.

Plus, I do think Damon gets a lot out of his most consistent collaborators on this record too, be it legends like Johnny Marr or Black Thought, who truly understands the assignment on every track he has a feature in terms of lyrically playing into the overall theme and point of the song he appears on.

I also love that Damon continues to use Gorillaz as a project to put on and celebrate new and exciting talent, too, such as Kara Jackson, who's really an underrated highlight on this LP that I don't hear enough people talking about.

It's also interesting and refreshing, finally, to hear something from a project that has been so defined by fantasy and escapism and immersion, like the separation between what you see on the surface and what is going on behind the curtain. It's cool that from a project like that, on an album like this, we are getting such a hefty dose of reality and personal emotional struggle, dealing in the state of the world, mortality, and spirituality.

So it's for all those reasons and more that I'm pretty much feeling a strong 7 to a light 8 on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Gorillaz. Forever.