‘Level 5’ Has King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Going Electronic

Left to Right: Lucas Harwood, Michael Cavanagh, Joey Walker, Stu Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith & Cook Craig (Photo Courtesy of Maclay Heriot)

There are bands who are prolific to the point where they’re putting out new material on an annual basis, and there are bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard who often put out multiple types of albums over the course of an entire year. This particular output leaves the door open for experimentation and a change of creative course. In fact, this is exactly what’s been going on with the Melbourne natives as of late. It’s exemplified in their single “Level 5,” which is officially out today (July 8). The tune is off of their 28th studio album Alien Metal, which is due to be released later this summer via P(Doom) Records.

The upcoming full-length has the sextet of lead vocalist and guitarist Stu Mackenzie, guitarists Joey Walker and Cook Craig, multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith, bassist Lucas Harwood, and drummer and percussionist Michael Cavanagh undergoing a transformation. This is due to a shift from psychedelic and progressive garage rock towards rhythmic and wide-ranging electronica with the use of the Eurorack synthesizer being the main catalyst.

“It completely rewired my brain,” Mackenzie says about experimenting with the instrument via a press release. “I was like, ‘I’m going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.’ We’ve never scrapped so much material as we have for this album. Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again. It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful.”

“Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places, and it feels unique — it feels like us, still,” Walker adds.

The music video for the new single is gnarly with a cult of some sort cutting open a naked and wrinkly being on an operating table. I’m not going to spoil the whole thing, but the being does wake up, and I’ll just leave it at that. To check it out as a sneak preview to a release that’s coming from a kickass musical entity, simply click on the play button below.

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Cover Artwork for King Gizzard & The Wizard Lixard’s “Alien Metal”

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