Gorillaz’s ‘The Happy Dictator’ Announces Their Mysterious New Album’s Release Date

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.

Gorillaz The Mountain Tracklist

01. “The Mountain” (feat. Dennis Hopper, Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash)
02. “The Moon Cave” (feat. Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda and Black Thought)
03. “The Happy Dictator” (feat. Sparks)
04. “The Hardest Thing” (feat. Tony Allen)
05. “Orange County” (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson and Anoushka Shankar)
06. “The God of Lying” (feat. IDLES)
07. “The Empty Dream Machine” (feat. Black Thought, Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar)
08. “The Manifesto” (feat. Trueno and Proof)
09. “The Plastic Guru” (feat. Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar)
10. “Delirium” (feat. Mark E. Smith)
11. “Damascus” (feat. Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey)
12. “The Shadowy Ligh”t (feat. Asha Bhosle, Gruff Rhys, Ajay Prasanna, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash)
13. “Casablanca” (feat. Paul Simonon and Johnny Marr)
14. “The Sweet Prince” (feat. Ajay Prasanna, Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar)
15. “The Sad God” (feat. Black Thought, Ajay Prasanna and Anoushka Shankar)