Orange County Lyrics – Gorillaz | from “The Mountain”

Gorillaz are cresting the ridge with The Mountain, their ninth studio album looming large for February 27 via their fresh KONG label, and “Orange County” drops like a fog-shrouded confession—2-D’s haunted croon tangled with Kara Jackson’s soul-stirring ache, making every farewell feel like a fresh bruise.

This single, unleashed January 15 as a double A-side with “The Hardest Thing” (nodding to the late Tony Allen’s Afrobeat ghost), is Gorillaz at their most disarmingly human: Damon Albarn’s piano-led melancholy fused with Bizarrap’s crisp, trap-tinged edges and Anoushka Shankar’s sitar whispers threading through like desert winds. It’s alternative electronica with a folk heart, those swelling choruses built on James Ford’s polished production and Remi Kabaka Jr.’s rhythmic pulse—think hazy sunsets over California cliffs, where the hardest goodbyes echo in the rearview.

Thematically, it’s a raw gut-check on loss and legacy: 2-D grappling with love’s tolls, Kara questioning if inheritance sours before you can claim it. No bombast here; it’s intimate, the kind of track that sneaks up during a solo drive, produced in sessions that blended London grit with global echoes. Fans were already dissecting those refrains on X after the drop, with Albarn teasing in a quick IG live how it stemmed from a late-night riff on impermanence.

The Mountain itself? It’s a 15-track odyssey of ascent and unraveling, kicking off with the title cut’s epic sprawl (feat. Dennis Hopper’s archival growl and a sitar army from Shankar and the Ali Bangash brothers) and weaving through dystopian jabs like “The Happy Dictator” with Sparks’ satirical bite. Tracks like “Damascus” (Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey trading fire) and “The God of Lying” (IDLES’ punk snarl) nod to political fractures, while “The Empty Dream Machine” ropes in Black Thought and Johnny Marr for that reflective haze. Recorded across UK studios and remote collabs post-Cracker Island, it’s got live horns, warped samples, and a thread of heartbreak tying the chaos—Albarn’s way of climbing personal peaks amid the world’s slides, proving Gorillaz never settle for summit selfies.