Gorillaz are back!

One of my very favorite bands have finally, finally, after years of silence, released a new single. And my heart gives happy palpitations along with the driving bass line.

To give you an idea of how long fans like me have been waiting, the last Gorillaz single was released all the way back in 2006. Since then only rumor and the occasional mention in interviews gave fans hope that a new album could be in the works. In fact, back in January of 09 rough demos of three new songs were aired on British radio, and then popped up online. I haven't listened, because I want to hear the completed songs fresh, but they confirmed fan's hopes that an album was indeed coming down the pipe line.

But the music gods have smiled on us, as we now have a release date; March 8th (Lord, how do I wait?)

For those of you unfamiliar with Gorillaz, here's the skinny. It's a virtual band, which is a fancy way of saying that while Gorillaz is made up of real people, most famously Damon Albarn of Blur, what is projected to the public via music videos and even live performances is a group of cartoon characters, drawn by Jamie Hewlett, who are meant to be the actual 'band' (think The Archies, but waaaaay cooler and much more twisted).

The cartoon band members include two Englishmen, a Brooklyn native and a Japanese girl who was FedExed in a crate to them when she was 10 (bear in mind, these are cartoons we're talking about). 2-D is the blue haired, accident-prone vocalist (though the voice you hear is actually Albarn's); Murdoc Niccals is the egomaniacal, satanist bassist; Russel Hobbs is the mentally unbalanced, hip hop drummer and Noodle is the socially conscious, Japanese-government-experiment guitarist. Still with me? OK, good. Anyway, these characters have their own histories, their own personalities and have had their own experiences with Gorillaz, all of which has been documented in the tell-all book Rise of the Ogre, told from the point of view of the 'band' and the creators behind them (great book by the way, but again, pretty freaky).

So, the new song. A lot can happen in four years, but if you give "Stylo" a listen, you'll hear that time has not softened the band's (animated or live-action) unique approach to pop music (check out the official website to hear for yourself). Gorillaz is known both for collaborating with a wide assortment of musicians and their desire to experiment with different musical formats, to come up with new definitions of pop music. "Stylo" features Mos Def and Bobby Womack, providing rap and soul respectively, mixing them with a pulsating rhythm that is very easy to dance to. The president of Parlephone (the band's record label) described the song as "a dark twisted track that sounds like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on MDMA." Couldn't have said it better myself. Love it! Can't wait for more.

I'm curious what the animated characters have been up to (and yes, I know they're not real, but still). Looking at new artwork in various magazine articles and for "Stylo" (see above), the four of them have changed quite a bit in the last few years. There's been talk that Noodle is now an android. I don't know what that's about, but hopefully all will be revealed before too long.

Plastic Beach, Gorillaz's third album, is out March 8th, and a new music video is in the works as well. Happy days, people! Hopefully the band will be just as animated as ever (always end on a good pun).