“Unlike nearly every musical act on the planet, you don’t see them expecting to hear a favorite song. Chances are, you won’t hear it. Instead, what binds all this, what they ask is faith in an old value: A live performance should be ephemeral, fleeting. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, exciting, dumb, silly, moving, is alive above all else.”
On the face of it, rage and joy are not an easy aesthetic fit. Rage is engaged, rope-veined; joy is free and light – frivolous, even. And yet the collected works of musical activist Kathleen Hanna – across three bands: 1990s punk outfit Bikini Kill, her electronic bedroom pop project the Julie Ruin, and Le Tigre, a multimedia collaboration alongside Johanna Fateman (mostly guitar) and JD Samson (mostly synths) – dance along the tightrope between fury and fun.
“The band are full of energy that doesn’t let up, whether playing and dancing to electro bops or guitar-heavy rock offerings. Hanna gives her trademark shrill screech throughout – a subversive, self-consciously feminine expression of punk”
Following their latest foray into thrash metal with 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard returned with a promise of more “heavy as fuck” tunes coming our way with the lengthily titled PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, due June 16 via their own KGLW.
“From start to finish, the band’s collective fluency with soul music truly shines”
“Playing live is this visceral, cathartic event. It might as well be like you’re playing a game of football, chess or whatever. It’s not the same as writing and rehearsing, you have a crowd, you have interactions with other people”
“Rich Homie Quan talked the talk, but John Dwyer walks the walk: The man will never stop going in. The prolific underground rock legend stayed busy with a zillion improvisational side projects during the pandemic, and it didn’t stop him from releasing a new album with main band OSEES last year. Now — on the release date of the new Live At Levitation — he’s already following up A Foul Form with Intercepted Message, another new OSEES LP”
Cleaner and lighter than past efforts, The Murlocs Calm Ya Farm is their best full album yet as the good time sounds flow like free wine at a late-night afterparty.
“Instead of trying to fit within genre conventions, the Murlocs piece together what they’ve explored in the past and let their country undertones rise through the cracks on Calm Ya Farm. At their most collaborative, they’ve created their most cohesive yet multi-faceted album to date. Surprisingly upbeat closer “Aletophyte” ends it all on the question of how to move forward when life leaves us feeling like sun-bleached shrubs between cracks of concrete. If we all fall off the edges of our minds in some way or another, maybe it’s best not to worry too much — just keep trying, because we’re all doing the best we can. This may be their first rodeo, but the Murlocs know damn well what they’re doing”
The band’s first album of 2023 follows the triple-header of LPs released in October of last year, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava’, ‘Laminated Denim’ and ‘Changes’.
The new album’s full title is ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse Or Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation’. No firm release date has yet been revealed, but the album will be up for pre-order from May 16 on Gizzverse.
Earlier this month, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard announced a new album called PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. Now, they’ve shared more details about the project, due out June 16th, and revealed its first single, “Gila Monster.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard came out of 2022 with five new albums, and the prolific Australian psych-rockers already have another new one on the way. They announced their 24th studio album in an Instagram post: It’s called PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation and pre-orders for the album start on May 16, though they haven’t disclosed a release date just yet.
“When we made Rats’ Nest, it felt experimental,” singer Stu Mackenzie said in a statement. “Like, ‘Here’s this music that some of us grew up on but we’d never had the guts or confidence to really play before, so let’s give it a go and see what happens.’ And when we made that album we were like, ‘Fuck, why did it take us so long to do this?’ It’s just so much fun to play that music, and those songs work so well when we play them live. So we always had it in our minds to make another metal record.”
The Murlocs offered the final preview of their coming album Calm Ya Farm with the swirling psychedelic single, “Queen Pinky”. The new album from the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard offshoot led by multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith is out on Friday via ATO Records.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will release new album ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation’ on June 16th.
The Australian band are ever-productive, releasing a string of albums throughout 2022. The coming year brings yet more projects, with King Gizzard set to release a grandiosely titled album this summer.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have announced details of their forthcoming album ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’, which is apparently “heavy as fuck”. The album will be out on 16th June via KGLW
An empty cabaret in the wee hours of the night is the setting for a surprising twist on the good, old-fashioned love song in the Murlocs‘ “Queen Pinky” video, directed by Hayden Somerville. The track can be found on the Australian band’s new album, Calm Ya Farm, which is out on Friday (May 19).
“If I’m going to write something, I need to move forward,” he said in a recent interview, his first since his opus, “One Wayne G,” was released. “I like this stuff. I’d like to share it. I don’t really know how. I might as well just give it all at the same time.”
“Celebrate they did, though there was also a shared sense of purpose marinating in the venue. One could feel the unspoken agreement that – while there is a lot of work to do to combat all of the recent legislative and judicial attacks on reproductive heath, gender-affirming care, and democracy in general – tonight was a time to dance and recharge in order to rise to fight another day.”
By the end of the first song there is one undeniable truth: Bikini Kill is just as paramount today as they were 30 years ago. Formed in 1990 in Olympia, Washington, Bikini Kill broke into music with the intention of igniting change. They were a beacon of resistance and actively encouraged other women to embrace their power. Kathleen Hanna is credited for coining phrases such as “girls to the front” and the infamous “girl power.” Their influence on alternative music and feminism during recent decades has been immeasurable. Now back on tour, the women who helped pioneer the Riot Grrrl Movement are reminding us all that our anger is our power.
The Murlocs turn reality upside down in the video for “Undone and Unashamed,” the second single from their upcoming album Calm Ya Farm. In the Jack Rule-directed clip, group member Ambrose Kenny-Smith does his best to snap an unidentified couch potato out of his bathrobe-wearing, beer-drinking, canned foot-eating malaise, while also offering up a nifty saxophone solo in the process.
“With Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna had led a band that challenged and changed the gender dynamics of punk rock. Then came Le Tigre. Hanna says that their MO was to “write political pop songs and be the dance party after the protest.” And their debut in 1999 delivered: it’s a record that’s clever and political but not too clever and political to get in the way of having fun: these are shouty, exhilarating songs, charged with a DIY spirit using drum machines, samplers, turntables and also a sense of discovery, celebration and solidarity. “Deceptacon” remains an indie dance-floor filler and “My My Metrocard” has the lines ““Oh, fuck Giuliani! He’s such a fucking jerk!”. What’s not to love?”
The artist will be playing a one-off show in Los Angeles as well as residencies in New York, Paris and at London’s Hackney Empire. Accompanied by a full band, he will be performing ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ in its entirety, as well as other songs from his catalogue with new arrangements.
The shows will see the singer-songwriter perform his recent album ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ in full
Most bands wring their hands over whether to reunite or not, but for Le Tigre it was easy. The impetus was a festival in Pasadena, Los Angeles, in 2022. “It was three miles from my house,” says frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, laughing. “I was like: ‘I want to do this because I can cruise down the hill and go to the festival and all my friends can come.’” Then they concluded that the rehearsals for the festival – done over video call, and in LA and New York where bandmates Johanna Fateman and JD Samson live – shouldn’t be wasted. They announced a full tour, their first since 2005, which hits the UK in June.
“Look, I’ve already waxed poetic in the e-pages of this particular publication about what be your own PET reuniting last year meant to me. To see them a year later as one of the biggest and busiest bands at SXSW warmed the cockles of my jaded 6th-time-at-SXSW heart. The nighttime set I saw at Mohawk was raw power, delivering favorites like “Adventure” and future hearing loss I’ll be billing to my HMO. They played a Damned cover and a couple new tunes; bands don’t reunite to play the hits at SXSW. A new album must be coming soon, and my internal 21-year-old and I are extremely pumped. “
“Ominously distorted minimal synth chords bang underneath a whooshing chant cranked on my best speakers while I think about how best to describe this music. The artist’s name is Spellling because that is what she does, cast spells.”
“Working quickly on the heels of their 2022 garage rock concept album Rapscallion, Australian rock outfit the Murlocs will return with another new project, Calm Ya Farm, on May 19 via ATO Records. Rarely content to work in one genre, the group dabbles here in the country rock stylings of the Byrds in tandem with tinges of ’70s British pub rockers such as Nick Lowe.”
“Mid 2000s Nashville garage rock band be your own PET got back together for the first time in 14 years in 2022 after being asked by Jack White to open part of his tour. Their shows have still been rare, but they’re gearing up for a busy SXSW, including one of the Third Man shows and the free BrooklynVegan day party at Mohawk on Wednesday (3/15). The band initially formed in 2004 when they were still teenagers, and they were overnight sensations right from the start with their single “Damn Damn Leash.” They caught the attention of Thurston Moore, who signed them to his Ecstatic Peace label and had them open for Sonic Youth. They broke up in 2008–after which singer Jemina Pearl went solo and other members formed JEFF the Brotherhood, Turbo Fruits, Public Access TV, and more–but they left an impact that’s continued to reach younger fans and influence new bands”
