With “Alien Metal,” the chaotic Australian group signs the summer’s surprise release, where its extraterrestrial radicality is plunged into an electro bath.
Alien Metal: for its surprise release, would King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have opted for a return to electric arpeggios and heavy incantations previously touched upon at a few milestones in a career marked by eclectic detours? Not at all.
But while it is not a metal album, this 28th record is undeniably an alien proposition. In the wake of fully electro performances given in 2025 and transformed into raves, Alien Metal is the fruit of an initiation: Stu Mackenzie, converted to modular synthesizers by his collaborator Joey Walker, a DJ and dubstep producer before the band’s formation.
One of the most precious minerals in the Gizzard deposit
When Joey explains to Stu the subtleties of the Eurorack, the two Wizards lose themselves in its labyrinth of combinatorial possibilities, until a miraculous jam session provides the backbone for this new album. An album that, despite numerous vocal tracks and an esoteric bent cherished by the Melbourne crew, deviates from the abundant past output to unambiguously aim for the dancefloor, through trance.
The record actually kicks off in medias res with the pulsations of Sapience before chaining tracks that could have sat on Daft Punk’s alternative discography if the robots had not become pop demigods. Further on, Level 5 will give everyone the sweats, and goosebumps to Prodigy nostalgics, as Rapid Alpha Decay and Uqt (on the edge of hyperpop) complete the making of this Alien Metal as one of the most precious minerals in the Gizzard deposit.
Alien Metal (P(doom) Records/Virgin Music Group/Universal). Release on August 14.
