Gorillaz

Gorillaz Return With An Album Date, A Video, And Creepy Cgi Portraits

... album. Today, the record finally has a name and a release date. Humanz, the band’s third full-length album, will be available on April 28 th. Along with that info, the band has posted a new video and a collection of portraits of its fictional members. Gorillaz is an experiment by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett that mixes music, marketing, and animated art. The two members, along with a handful of collaborators, are represented publicly by four virtual characters: 2 D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs. When the band launched in 1998, the characters and their world were portrayed in music videos, the band’s website, and limited live performances. But the idea of Gorillaz feels better suited for 2017, when fictional characters having their own social media accounts is common practice. Their new portraits, which step a little too close to the uncanny valley, are designed like Twitter avatars. But these aren’t the new designs, per se. The band isn’t limited to human bodies, so its depiction is more fluid. In the video released today, they’re 2 D, drawn like a grimy update of the Scooby-Doo gang. ( Here’s the 360-degree version , if you prefer that.). With the album ...

Gorillaz, Father John Misty, Kendrick ? , And Much More

... expanded from the wounded folk of “Normal Song” into the glam-rock accents of “Fool” and the queer empowerment anthem “Queen,” off 2014’s Too Bright. The fourth, this spring’s No Shape, pushes him further while retaining the project’s personal air of music as therapy. Of new songs like “Slip Away,” Hadreas says, “I think a lot of them are about trying to be happy in the face of whatever bullshit I created for myself or how horrible everything and everyone is.” —CJ. At the Drive-In, in•ter a•li•a (May 5). The El Paso–based post-hard-core legends At the Drive-In broke up shortly after the release of Relationship of Command, a superb album that made them minor-league famous; that was back in 2001. A few years after reuniting, they’re back with a new collection in 2017. You can get an old crew together again , but the magic between them is rather more elusive. Here’s hoping that the same malaise afflicting the post-reunion Pixies doesn’t get the worst of them as well. —FG. Chris Stapleton, TBA (May 5). First Chris ...