King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Detail New Album 'Alien Metal'

The band have also unveiled a new single, 'Level 5,' which features 'Underbelly' star Vince Colosimo in the music video.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Australia’s most prolific band, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, have announced their 28th album, Alien Metal.

Set for release later this year via the band’s own p(doom) Records, they’ve also unveiled the first single from the new album, Level 5. The music video itself is a work of art, starring Underbelly, Chopper, and The Wog Boy star Vince Colosimo.

Alien Metal was written and recorded on the modular synthesiser King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard brought on the road with them last year, which they ended up naming ‘Nathan’.

It follows their recent “rave shows,” including their free pop-up show at Melbourne’s Fed Square, which drew 10,000 fans to the CBD, and takes inspiration from their 2023 album, The Silver Cord, setting the control for “the dark heart of electronic dance music.”

With so much experimentation, Alien Metal has already been described as one of the band’s most ambitious outings to date.

Discovering the capabilities of the Eurotrack synthesiser thanks to bandmate Joey Walker, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Stu Mackenzie confessed, “It completely rewired my brain. I was like, ‘I’m going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.’”

Mackenzie added that, while the album now contains eight tracks, numerous ideas for Alien Metal were abandoned over the last few years. “We’ve never scrapped so much material as we have for this album,” he said. “Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again.”

Describing the album, which features shifts through techno and hardcore influences, Mackenzie concluded, “It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful.” Walker added, “Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places. And it feels unique – it feels like us, still.”

Check out the music video for Level 5, as well as the Alien Metal track listing and cover art, below.

Back in December, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took over venues along the East Coast with rock and orchestral shows. Along with the tour, the band performed a free show at Federation Square in Melbourne, turning the CBD into the ultimate rave location.

Mackenzie teased upon announcing the show in October, “Come on down. Freak out with us. You ain’t never seen this many patch cables in your life.”

The free, all-ages event marked the debut of King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s rave shows in Australia, and their first show on home soil in over two years.