Music

Gorillaz Bring Cartoons and Social Commentary in New Track, “Hallelujah Money”

Moby’s not the only artist with something to say today about President-elect Trump’s impending reign. After a six-year absence, British band Gorillaz have returned with a biting new track, “Hallelujah Money.”

The track features British vocalist Benjamin Clementine, who with a slow-burning warble sings of power, corruption, and humanity. In the track’s accompanying music video, he stares down the camera in an elevator, its walls projecting a variety of images, including cartoons, KKK gatherings, killer clowns, and western movies. Climaxing in a flurry of red, white, and blue animations, the video abruptly ends with a clip from the popular cartoon series Spongebob Squarepants.

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A new Tweet from Gorillaz sharing the video reads: “Dark times – u need someone to look up to. Me. Here’s a lightning bolt of truth in a black night. Now piss on! New stuff won’t write itself.”

“Hallelujah Money” is the first new music heard from the group since they released their last album, The Fall, in 2011, but it’s not the first single from their as-yet-untitled fifth album. “So far, it’s really fast, and it’s got quite a lot of energy,” co-founder Damon Albarn told Rolling Stone of the record back in 2015. According to fellow Gorillaz member Jamie Hewlett, it’s slated to come out sometime this year.

Watch “Hallelujah Money” above.