King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, the famously prolific Australian band known for its relentless output and genre-bending sonic explorations, has unveiled its 28th studio album, "Alien Metal," marking a significant departure into the realm of hard dance music. This latest offering represents a deliberate and time-consuming experiment for the sextet, a stark contrast to their typical rapid-fire release schedule.
Since their 2012 debut, King Gizzard has established a reputation for churning out albums at an astonishing pace, often releasing multiple projects within a single year. This uncharacteristic approach to album creation for "Alien Metal" underscores the band’s ambition to push their sonic boundaries further than ever before. The album’s release, after a relatively lengthy 14-month hiatus in the band’s prolific timeline, signals a new chapter in their expansive catalog.
The shift is dramatic: "Alien Metal" sees King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard trading their signature guitars for an imposing Eurorack modular synthesizer system, affectionately nicknamed "Nathan." This complex setup allows all six members to engage in simultaneous sonic manipulation, a concept the band began exploring with a series of "rave shows" in late 2024. The band’s commitment to this new direction is evident as they prepare for their second annual Field of Vision camping festival near Denver and a four-date run in New York City, with Nathan presumably in tow.
While King Gizzard has a history of incorporating electronic elements into their music, exemplified by their 2023 electropop album "The Silver Cord," "Alien Metal" dives headfirst into the high-BPM, pummeling rhythms characteristic of hard dance. This venture onto the dance floor marks a significant evolution for a band historically rooted in garage rock and psychedelic sounds.
According to frontman Stu Mackenzie, the band’s initial foray into electronic music sparked a desire to delve deeper into its tropes while simultaneously forging a sound uniquely their own. "We’ve already done a few [electronic] things which were interesting to us," Mackenzie stated. "Let’s lean into the tropes a little bit more with this one – but also, let’s see if we can create something that feels like we made it, and that feels like it has its own DNA."
This ambitious objective necessitated a departure from the band’s usual creative workflow, demanding a level of patience and refinement previously unseen in their discography. "We definitely scrapped more material for this record than we ever have, which was not something we expected to do," Mackenzie, 35, explained during a video call from his native Melbourne. "It needed to congeal – it needed to set."
Despite the new sonic landscape, King Gizzard maintained its fiercely DIY ethos throughout the creation of "Alien Metal." The band members themselves were responsible for modding out the Eurorack system and meticulously recording their experiments in their Melbourne warehouse studio, a space described by Mackenzie as having "rats running along the floor and st." He vividly characterized the process: "We’ve just been doing this st ourselves, man. This is some f**king truly mad scientist, making explosions in the bathtub-type stuff."
The recording of "Alien Metal" spanned "a good couple years," yet the ever-restless band continued to conceptualize and develop numerous other projects concurrently. "Whole records were formulated and thought of and expanded on and recorded – and, you know, completely abandoned," Mackenzie revealed. "Maybe they’ll turn into something eventually."
Mackenzie also noted that "Alien Metal" may not be as far removed from King Gizzard’s established sound as it might initially appear. He observed, "There are certain parallels with a lot of the heavy metal stuff we’ve done to techno, and to some of the more krautrock-ish, hypnotic, longer stuff that we’ve done. Maybe there is a thread with King Gizz and dance music that isn’t so far away."
The Genesis of "Alien Metal": A Modular Symphony
The evolution towards "Alien Metal" is a narrative woven from various threads of King Gizzard’s recent electronic experiments. From the atmospheric electronica of "The Silver Cord" to the improvisational modular ambient recordings of "Mango Sticky Rice" released late last year, and the high-energy "rave tours" featuring the Eurorack system, the band has been steadily exploring new sonic territories.
"King Gizz has been experimenting with electronic music in certain capacities for quite a long time," Mackenzie elaborated, citing earlier explorations like 2021’s "Butterfly 3000" and its remix companion "Butterfly 3001," as well as "Made in Timeland" from 2022. He distinguished these past efforts from the current project, noting that previous works often sounded like "rock band making electronic music," which, while interesting, was not the objective for "Alien Metal." This distinction necessitated a more profound and developmental approach to the album’s creation.
The inherent challenges of composing traditional songs with modular synthesizers became a focal point for the band. "It’s quite challenging to write songs, in the traditional sense, with this equipment, and I don’t think it’s what it’s good at or built for, but that therefore became interesting [to us]," Mackenzie explained. The intricate process of orchestrating six-person improvisational electronic music using the Eurorack hardware, with its ubiquitous patch cables, is deeply embedded in the album’s narrative.
This context informed the band’s approach to "Alien Metal," prompting them to question their artistic direction. "What are we doing here with this record?" Mackenzie posed. This fundamental inquiry is a recurring theme in their creative process, aiming to define the unique personality of each album. The act of naming the record "Alien Metal" early on proved pivotal, transforming an abstract concept into a tangible entity with its own identity and rhythm.
Navigating the Sonic Landscape of Modular Synthesis
The naming of "Alien Metal" prior to its completion served as a guiding principle, a "North Star" that aided in decision-making and the overall finishing process. When discussing the creative process, Mackenzie highlighted that the Eurorack system, rather than presenting limitations, offers an almost infinite sonic palette. "It’s actually insane how many sounds you can get out of these boxes," he marveled. "It’s fking amazing, and if you’re creative about the patch you’re making, you can do truly wild st."
The primary challenge lay in discerning which of these myriad sounds would be most compelling. This involved an extensive learning curve and a deep dive into the experimental possibilities of the hardware. Mackenzie described the experience as akin to being a "mad scientist," leading to a profound shift in his understanding of music and, specifically, voltage and its mathematical underpinnings.
A unique aspect of the Eurorack format is its visual representation of the creative process. The external patch cables create distinct, individual synthesizers for each member, offering a transparent glimpse into their unique approaches. "I can understand my patch, but I can’t necessarily rationalize why any of the other guys made the patch that they did," Mackenzie observed. "It’s this window into someone’s creative process. It’s actually a super visual window, with all the cables hanging out on the outside. I’ve fallen in love with that as just an expression in itself."
Reinterpreting Instrumentation and the Future of King Gizzard’s Sound
The band’s continued engagement with electronic music has also fostered a renewed appreciation for their traditional instrumentation. "It’s made me have a different kind of appreciation for the guitar, and also acoustic or unsynthesized, organic instruments," Mackenzie stated. The painstaking effort required to construct even a rudimentary bassline using modular synthesis, contrasted with the immediate impact of a guitar or bass played through an amplifier, has provided a new perspective on sonic immediacy.
"I think about sound now in a way that I didn’t think about sound [before]," he reflected. "I thought about music, and notes and melody and harmony and stuff. But it forces you to think about things at a much more rudimentary level, because ultimately all this thing is doing is sending voltages to things. You just have to think about it on a more atomic level, a more cellular level, a more granular level."
When asked about the band’s primary dance music touchstones, Mackenzie admitted that his entry point has been more about the equipment and the novel way of conceptualizing sound rather than specific artists. His personal immersion in the modular synthesizer world, exploring the intricacies of its circuitry and sonic outputs, has become his primary listening experience.
Unraveling the Lore and Evolving Release Cadence
"Alien Metal" continues King Gizzard’s tradition of intricate world-building, with lyrical references to an "astral blacksmith" and a "mortician," and lines like "We don’t wish death – but we will kill for the steel." Mackenzie expressed a desire for listeners to engage with the album’s narrative on their own terms, whether experiencing it at face value or delving into its deeper meanings, emphasizing that the lyrics are not necessarily the central focus.
The band’s release schedule has seen a deliberate slowing down in recent years, with one album per year following a period of prolific output that saw anywhere from two to five projects annually. Mackenzie indicated that two albums are currently around three-quarters complete, a familiar pattern of creative momentum. He acknowledged a shift from the "desperately ambitious" drive of his mid-twenties, now preferring to allow projects the time they need to fully develop.
"As you get older, doing stuff like that is harder," he commented on the rapid-fire release model. "We’ve got two sort of ideas. Not even ideas, but we have two records that are like three-quarters finished at the moment, which is a bit silly and does happen sometimes. We definitely have slowed down in finishing records."
A Quieter Touring Year and Anticipation for Future Endeavors
While King Gizzard’s touring schedule has been more restrained this year compared to previous periods, they are celebrating "Alien Metal" with their second annual Field of Vision festival and a four-show engagement in New York City. Mackenzie described the previous Field of Vision festival as a "magical" and "unreal" experience, expressing excitement for its return.
The band anticipates a return to a more extensive touring schedule next year. However, 2024 has been marked by a period of relative quiet on the touring front, largely due to personal commitments and a focus on music creation. "We’ve been busy with life, and also just making music. We’ve been on home soil a lot lately, which is cool. Family, life – the ship of life doesn’t stop sailing." This period of introspection and groundedness has clearly fueled the experimental spirit that birthed "Alien Metal," promising further sonic evolution from the ever-inventive King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
