Australia’s most relentlessly prolific psych-rock outfit has taken another radical left turn. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have officially unveiled their 28th studio album, Alien Metal, released through p(doom) Records. Despite what its ferocious title might suggest to casual listeners, the record is not a return to thrash metal. Instead, the Melbourne six-piece has plunged headfirst into the dark, pulsating world of hard dance music, delivering a 40-minute electronic odyssey heavily influenced by industrial techno, breakbeat, jungle, and rave culture.
Dismantling the Rig to Relearn the Craft
The origins of Alien Metal stem directly from the band's recent marathon "rave shows," where traditional guitars and drum kits were swapped out for "Nathan"—their affectionate nickname for a sprawling, custom-built modular synthesiser setup. Frontman Stu Mackenzie revealed that diving deep into the Eurorack format completely rewired his creative process, prompting him to discard years of traditional songwriting habits. The band ended up scrapping hours of material across multiple iterations—the most discarded demos for any project in their history—before finding a seamless, hypnotic groove that clicked during an intense late-night studio session.
A Dark Cosmic Universe of Sound
Over eight tightly woven tracks, including lead singles like "Level 5" and "Kill for the Steel", Alien Metal builds a grim, dystopian atmosphere. Ditching conventional song structures, the band utilizes pitch-shifted, vocoded vocals and heavy basslines that loop back seamlessly onto themselves. The resulting audio landscape blends sci-fi world-building with intense, club-ready percussion. Rather than coming across as rock musicians playing at electronic production, tracks like "Superheavy, Supercritical" prove the group has mastered synth modulation and syncopated rhythms with genuine authority.
Pushing Boundaries Fourteen Years In
Fourteen years into an unprecedented career, King Gizzard continues to prove that genre boundaries are merely temporary suggestions. By stepping far away from the acoustic textures and synth-pop experiments of their earlier discography, Alien Metal stands as one of their most uncompromising, atmospheric records to date. As the band prepares to tour these new electronic arrangements globally, this latest chapter proves that their appetite for artistic reinvention remains as endless as the cosmos itself.
Nathan the Rig: The custom Eurorack modular rig nicknamed "Nathan" became so complex during the recording of Alien Metal that the band had to construct a bespoke flight case lined with industrial cooling fans; during live festival rehearsals, the synth setup pulled so much power that it accidentally tripped the circuit breakers in their Melbourne studio three times in a single afternoon!
