King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard announced Wednesday that their next album, Alien Metal, is coming later this summer. It will be the Australian band's 28th studio LP and their most aggressive electronic project to date.
The album will be released on the band's own p(doom) Records. According to Billboard, the announcement came alongside the release of the lead single, a spacey, acid-influenced, jungle-inflected track called "Level 5." The music video was directed by Australian filmmaker Hayden Somerville and features a cameo by Australian actor Vince Colosimo.
Alien Metal has been a long time coming. The band has described the recording process as unusually difficult, with multiple full albums written, recorded, and discarded before the project finally came together.
"We've never scrapped so much material as we have for this album," said the band's Stu Mackenzie in a press release. "Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again."
The breakthrough came during a late-night jam session that ran for over an hour. The press release states that every track on Alien Metal evolved from that single source performance.
Guitarist Joey Walker described the record as harder and more exploratory than the band's previous electronic work. "Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places," he said. "And it feels unique — it feels like us, still."
The band's 2023 album The Silver Cord covered electronic subgenres including ambient and acid house. Alien Metal moves into darker territory, drawing from techno, hardcore, ravey house, and jungle.
The album's eight tracks are titled "Sapience," "Alien Metal," "Superheavy, Supercritical," "Kill For The Steel," "Level 5," "Rapid Alpha Decay," "Uqt," and "Atomic Collapse."
The announcement follows a July 7 reveal that the band will play a rave show under the K Bridge in Brooklyn on August 23. That date follows a three-night run at Forest Hills Stadium in New York from August 20 through August 22, with the August 22 show also being a rave set. The band's Field of Vision festival, scheduled for August 14 through 16 in Buena Vista, Colorado, is already sold out.
