Casting off the accoutrements of their guitar-based set-up, Australian psychonauts King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard turn a new page on ‘Alien Metal’ with a full-on rave set, breaking new ground and delivering fast-paced pounding beats to add to their burgeoning list of albums and genres.

Stream: ‘Alien Metal’ – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

It’s hard to believe that the multi-faceted musical polymaths King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have any ground left to cover in terms of new genres of music.

Any mention of the band will have fans reeling off a wide selection of different styles the band has dabbled with – And in many cases, got themselves absolutely drenched in – But there is always room for more. 2026 appears to be the year the boys go fully electronic, finally removing all vestiges of their initial rock-based instrumentation, and going down a dramatically different route with their latest (and 28th, count ‘em!) album Alien Metal.

It’s a record which thrives on consistency, with little dynamic shift throughout the runtime. It not only begs to be listened to front to back, but simply does not make sense any other way. The energy and pace is relentless; a constantly kinetic tunnel of sound. This is all down to the recording process – After honing their desired sound palette, the Gizz boys pressed record on an hour-long jam and, after some creative editing, the album was born. It begins with no fanfare, and carries on like the band had been playing for hours beforehand, as if someone waited until they were white-hot and decided to capture them at their peak.

Lead single “Level 5” sets the tone for a new era. A raucous, pulsating track, sat somewhere between breakbeat and the junglier sounds of The Prodigy’s earlier output, it is accompanied by an unusually high concept video involving cloaked figures reviving some kind of mutant-alien hybrid creature through the power of music. For a band which usually opts for an uncomplicated lo-fi approach, this is rarely-trodden ground. It serves as a small evolution alongside the enormous scene-shift brought on by the music.

There is precedent in the Gizzverse for this latest change in direction.

The band have liberally dusted their back catalogue with synthesized sounds over the years, while deep-cut fan favourites such as “Cyboogie” and “Intrasport” showcased their ability to go full psych-rave, if only for one song. However the true progenitor for this project is surely The Silver Cord, their 2023 dalliance into electronica, which boasts extended beats-laden tracks. A little further down the road, King Gizz performed a much-lauded series of shows with a full rave set-up – It would be these sessions which spawned Alien Metal.

On such a relentless record, one of the few true breakdowns is found in Superheavy, Supercritical. The beats pull themselves back and you get to push your head above the waterline for a scant moment while the vocoded lyrics (a robust leitmotif generously applied throughout Alien Metal) carry the mid-section through. An energetic and progressive build-up follows, the band allowing for a slight detour through their familiar euphoric psychedelia before the inevitable return to full racing speed. As is often the case on King Gizz records, it’s the little subtleties and perfect moments that make the difference on Alien Metal.

While the music may be a full departure, the band have made sure to give room for some of their overarching lore and stylistic ethos. Alien Metal is an album which can be played in a constant loop – The end of Atomic Collapse allows for a seamless transition back to Sapience, if desired. This is the same trick employed on fan-favourite Nonagon Infinity, further displaying the band’s commitment to boundless creativity. They made sure of a unique sound by hand-modifying the Eurorack synths used throughout the record, an example of the D.I.Y philosophy King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have so readily incorporated into much of their work to date.

So Alien Metal is perhaps not best seen as a 180-degree shift, rather the band operating as they always have done. They have applied the same mindset to the album as the projects that came before. The brief is simple – Let’s get some cool sounds down and play around with it. No restrictions within the style. And there were apparently a lot of dead-ends – Band leader Stu Mackenzie, when describing the recording process confirmed that “Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again.” The album arrived 14 months after its predecessor, essentially an ice-age for a band who often put out two to three albums a year.

But when it’s all said and done, it’s the same core group of musicians who got together and did the thrash metal records, the jazzy experimentations, and the scratchy surf-rock tunes.

And once again they are operating under the same spirit of collaborative ingenuity. In the same room where squealing guitar solos rang out and 20-minute krautrock epics were born, now the drum machines and keyboards are making the walls shake. Business as usual then for these galactic scholars.

As with many of the various trick-steps and tangential explorations of this band, it’s tough to predict what’s coming next. Are we to be barraged with a slew of big dance records, the guitars and drumkits growing ever-dustier in the cupboard, or will they return to the familiar potency of their psych-rock sound? Do we get another riff-soaked metal album? Or perhaps they’ll return to their microtonal set-up and give Angine de Poitrine a run for their money. This freedom and unpredictability about King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is what makes them so special. Perhaps even they don’t know what’s next.

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 © Jason Galea

Alien Metal

an album by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard