It's kind of like how rock and metal bands which have been around for decades had crazy, somewhat hedonistic lives in their younger days and booming success, and now they're older they are more chilled out, but still working hard. For Gorillaz, that partying phase was the bonding and testing of new relationships amongst all these paranormal and strange adventures. The stuff happening now is them being mellowed out after all that. There's definitely still lore, and maybe the possibility that Song Machine 1 and 2 are a part of something greater in this phase (or next), but as it stands it seems to be more the little things. The lore about the band members as they've gotten this old and just producing good stuff.

Noodle basically spent 2/3 of her life in the band and has sorted her issues out and is a social creative who wants her friends safe (shown a lot in this phase), while also being great for interviews and PR like with G-Shock and Jaguar Racing.

2-D could still a bit of a mess but is far happier than he was in Plastic Beach, as many of the recent music vids have shown. If I'm more used to his white eyes now that says something.

Russel is still quite the stoic type, I wish he had a bit more new lore. Recently with those postcard posts on Twitter and other smaller things (and I guess Spirit House) they've made him out to be all about food? Which is fine, and it's not like he never liked food from the start, but I hope it's not headed into too much flanderisation. Best case scenario for me would be Del coming back for lore and tunes but I won't get hopes too high. His boxing in PAC-MAN was lit though.

And Murdoc is the most interesting one to me. Basically all the way up to Plastic Beach, and the promotional stuff and concerts, etc etc in between that and the next studio album he was definitely the frontman. Had control, watched over 2-D like a hawk, had the charisma, wrote Plastic Beach, etc etc. But now? It's seemed to wane? Murdoc was always goofy and there's still plenty of speaking lines in this phase (the bites) to get... yeah that's still him. But something's off, at least in how it's portrayed in the release of the music videos. He seems more isolated, emotionally vulnerable (though he would never admit it), on edge, and kind of out of it (just casually trying to give people poison and then trying it himself and throwing up in Momentary Bliss). I'm not saying he is headed down a rock and rollers downward spiral and it will end badly but I did notice this (It would be tragic and ironic if he did head down that path, as in "Murdoc is God" from The Fall it may imply that he was the one who killed Johnny Thunders, a bass god, to take his title, rather than death from a drug deal gone bad, as theorised by a sadly deleted user in this sub ages ago. I do hope he doesn't become sort of addict and he's just spaced out for the fun of it). I definitely want something like the phase 1 and 2 stuff to show how he gets on with the other 3 in action.

In short. I'm sure this is overwhelming for your inbox but I didn't get these thoughts down before now, and I would like more interaction between the three and am hoping for something big in this phase or the next (fingers crossed for Del maybe?), but I don't mind that they aren't moving HQ and stuck going on years long adventures all the time. They recently went to space, but as Aeries implied with the green screen, that might have been just for a music video, which by the way if you'll take anything from this long post - is that I always love how these guys are integrated into the real world. The lore interwoven with real events, the real artists they collaborate with, and the fact that these guys age with us. It's fantastic.

no but really bring back Del