KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD ANNOUNCE DETAILS OF NEW ALBUM ALIEN METAL & SHARE NEW SINGLE/VIDEO ‘LEVEL 5’
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have today announced details of their 28th album, Alien Metal, which will be released later this year via p(doom) Records, sharing the first single and video, 'Level 5'.
In keeping with their recent ‘rave shows’, including the free pop-up in Melbourne/Naarm which saw 10,000 fans descend on the iconic Fed Square, and following on from their 2023 album The Silver Cord, Alien Metal sees the ever shape-shifting Melbourne six-piece set the controls for the dark heart of electronic dance music.
Written and recorded on the modular synthesiser set-up which they took out on the road last year, and named ‘Nathan’ by the band, the track listing for Alien Metal is as follows:
Sapience
Alien Metal
Superheavy, Supercritical
Kill For The Steel
Level 5
Rapid Alpha Decay
Uqt
Atomic Collapse
The video for the first single 'Level 5', directed by Hayden Somerville, features a cameo by Vince Colosimo, known for his iconic roles in Chopper, Lantana, The Wog Boy and Underbelly, as well as appearances in The Great Gatsby, Daybreakers and Body of Lies. Producer Ruby Thomas shares, "Hayden had brought up Vince on numerous occasions when fantasising about casting for previous projects, but I had mostly laughed it off because it seemed impossible. But on this occasion it didn't feel like such a crazy idea. We really wanted to find a strong, recognisable face to lead this clip, and in Australian cinema, Vince is all that and more. He was a dream to work with and brought so much more to the role than we could have imagined."
Arguably one of the most exciting live bands on the planet right now, this August sees the return of their now SOLD OUT Field of Vision Festival and a run of three headline shows at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium, ahead of which they play another ‘rave show’ in Brooklyn in July. Full list of dates here.
Never ones to musically stand still and following explorations of everything from prog-fringed thrash metal, primitive synth-rock, down-home jam-rock hoedowns and feelgood symphonic rock on recent albums, Alien Metal grew out of last year’s ‘rave shows’ where traditional instruments were abandoned as the band gathered around an expansive modular synthesiser setup each making their own manipulations to create a mind-altering whole. And what began as an experiment soon became an obsession, inspiring one of the band's most ambitious records to date.
"It completely rewired my brain," said Stu Mackenzie, having discovered the possibilities of the Eurorack synthesiser format on the recommendation of fellow band member and self-confessed ’techno head of the group’ Joey Walker. "I was like, 'I'm going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch'."
The album was far from straightforward to make. Over the course of several years, the band scrapped countless recordings and abandoned entire creative directions while searching for the project's identity. "We've never scrapped so much material as we have for this album," Mackenzie says. "Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again."
The breakthrough finally arrived during a late-night improvisation session that stretched for more than an hour. That spontaneous jam became the foundation for the entire record, with every track on Alien Metal evolving from the same source performance.
The result is a seamless, ever-shifting journey through techno, hardcore, house and jungle influences, filtered through King Gizzard's unmistakable psychedelic lens. Pulsing rhythms, distorted textures and unexpected twists collide across a record that feels both futuristic and uniquely their own.
"It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful," says Mackenzie. "Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places," adds Joey Walker. "And it feels unique – it feels like us, still."
