Last month, prolific Aussie rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announced their 28th album Alien Metal, but they didn't share a release date. Over the past couple weeks, they've teased the album with singles "Level 5," "Kill For The Steel," and the title track. As of today, we're finally able to experience their intergalactic rave.
Although the Melbourne six-piece has historically approached their albums with an open mind to genre and technique — see 2023's synth-driven The Silver Cord or 2025's orchestral Phantom Island — Alien Metal made them forget all that. "It completely rewired my brain," Stu Mackenzie said. "I was like, 'I'm going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.'" The result is something.
Alien Metal sounds like a biomechanical tattoo come to life. It sounds like something I want to experience at the Sphere in Las Vegas. It's science fiction trance music. There are steam-puff synths and drum kick hysterics that feel like building sandstorms. Although this isn't necessarily something I would put on unless given some mind-altering concoction, Alien Metal has some payoff toward the end.
The unnerving "Uqt" is an immediate standout; it sounds like something the flamethrower guitar guy from Mad Max would play. (I've learned his official character name is Coma The Doof Warrior.) I's angular and rubbery and ominous. Instrumental closer "Atomic Collapse" follows with its obliterating laser beam vision. Despite flashes of expired milk, zombie clones, and interstellar realities, there's something strangely fun about Alien Metal.
Listen below.
Alien Metal is out now on the band's own p(doom) label.
