Latest updates about “King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard”

How King Gizzard Conquered the World — While Staying DIY
Rolling Stone

On this tour, Mackenzie is giving up a bit of the creative control in order to livestream each show on YouTube — something he’d considered for years but that took time to fall into place. Documentary filmmakers Jackson Devereux and Allen Dobbins record each performance in real time, with the sound mix (helmed by longtime King Gizzard audio engineer Sam Joseph) coming straight from the live mix of the show. It’s not a traditional way to livestream — most acts would make sure to have a separate sound mix going out to the stream — but it’s one that fits in with their DIY approach. “I think a lot of people would look at this operation and be like, ‘You guys are absolutely insane,’” Mackenzie says. “That is not what you’re supposed to do. So many things could go wrong at any moment, but I think making it free allows you to have a few teething problems along the way, and figure it out in good faith.”

Inside the Cult of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
Exclaim

What sounds like a swift descent into madness or preface for a cult escape thinkpiece is actually pretty standard behaviour for a passionate King Gizzard fan. Why I and many others readily spend a month’s rent on dozens of concert tickets is difficult to pinpoint, and something that escapes the Melbourne rock band’s comprehension as well.

“Hell no!” exclaims singer-guitarist Stu Mackenzie when I ask if he had ever expected the Grateful Dead-esque fandom surrounding the band. Speaking by phone on the eve of the summer solstice, his wide-eyed gratitude is palpable as he pieces together the puzzle.

I understand his disbelief. Following King Gizzard to cities I have trouble placing on a map was more of a culture that absorbed me at its onset than a conscious lifestyle choice. “It was definitely not part of the game plan. I mean, I’m not sure we ever really had a solid game plan,” admits Mackenzie.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: Flight b741 review – a cheerfully rocking album about global collapse
The Guardian

The rollicking feel of Flight b741 masks some of the band’s most plainly dark lyrics to date, exploring dissociation, suicidal ideation and global collapse in a casual, conversational style – it’s one of the most cheerful doomer records in recent memory. The title of eight-minute closer Daily Blues is a pun, referring to its frenzied blues workout as well as its chorus of “gettin’ fucked up daily”. On Le Risque, the band – vocals are shared across the album, and on many songs they all take a shot at singing – crave “something to thin the blood,” imagining daredevil stunts as a way to get shaken out of a stupor. “I’m feeling like a horse on ket,” on Field of Vision, is a silly image, but in this context it refers to moving through the world in a depressive haze.

Going Their Own Way — Two more acts who have followed unconventional paths to building loyal fandoms.
New York Times

A catalog that refuses to be pinned down to any single genre. One album may give off Tame Impala aesthetics (the Moog-heavy “The Silver Cord” from last year), while its predecessor, “PetroDragonic Apocalypse,” is a thrash-heavy metal record akin to early Mastodon. The group has made pastoral folk pop (“Paper Mâché Dream Balloon” from 2015), and fuzzier, psychedelic garage and surf rock (“Willoughby’s Beach” from 2011). When you’re listening to “the Gizz,” the only constant is change. “Every single record is reflective of whatever phase of life we’re in, whatever made us creatively most inspired at the time,” Mackenzie said in an interview.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard share documentary about upcoming album & new single “Hog Calling Contest”
Brooklyn Vegan

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have shared a second song from their soon-to-be-released 26th album Flight b741. “Hog Calling Contest” definitely has a honky tonk twang to it, in the band’s own inimitable way. “While recording Flight b741, we occasionally had these ultra inspired tune-up/warm-up jams,” say the band. “Of course, we were never actually recording during these moments though. Lost to time. Except one time; This time. We learnt to record these moments; ‘Daily Blues’ came together this way too. But ‘Hog Calling Contest’ retains a unique unhinged-ness that only comes when you’re fooling around with your mates and you don’t think you’re being recorded. Happy in mud!”

Also out today is Oink Oink Flight b741: The Making of… which is a 15 minute mini documentary about the new album. Says director Guy Tyzak, “We were tasked with capturing the band make an album from scratch in two weeks, they purposefully didn’t prepare much for the recordings so it was very difficult for me to plan what to film,” Tyzack says. “I just knew they’d be in one room and three of them might drop out at any moment because they were expecting babies. The room looked brown and boring so I painted it like the sky to match the theme of the album in one 17hr stretch with three friends and a slab of mids.”

King Gizzard Crown New Label With Jay Watson/Ambrose Kenny-Smith LP
SPIN

Australian sextet King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are folding their own KGLW label into a new entity, (p)doom Records, which will not only put out their new and archival music moving forward but also that of their individual band members, friends and collaborators. First out of the gate on July 19 will be Ill Times, the debut pairing of Tame Impala/Pond/GUM principal Jay Watson and Gizzard multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith. The title track is available now

The 63 Most Anticipated Tours of 2024
Pitchfork

BIKINI KILL: 

Punk icons Bikini Kill will hit the road starting this summer for a North American tour. It will follow the release of lead singer Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, which hits shelves in May. The tour begins in Los Angeles this August and includes stops in San Francisco, Toronto, Brooklyn, and more, with support from Comet Gain, Big Joanie, Tropical Fuck Storm, Snoozers, and R.Aggs.

 

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD: 

The beloved and prolific Australian weirdos King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are touring a lot this year in support of their latest album, The Silver Chord. After a successful string of March festival dates in South America, the band has dates slated for May with Grace Cummings across the United Kingdom and Europe. Then, the group will head to North America for shows in August, September, and November. Crowds in Forest Hills, New York, on August 17; Chicago, Illinois, on September 1; Quincy, Washington, on September 14; and Austin, Texas, on November 15 are also getting the band’s famous three-hour “marathon shows.”

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Announce 25th Album The Silver Cord
Paste Magazine

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are back with a triple-single to announce their monumental 25th album, The Silver Cord. The band also have unveiled a lineup of 3-hour marathon sets beginning next year. The Australian six-piece dropped “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set” in a trippy 12-minute music video showcasing the album’s range from melodic synths to hard-hitting techno with distorted vocals.

King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard Goes Electro On Three New Songs
Spin

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard dives headfirst into electronic music like never before on its upcoming 25th album The Silver Cord, the first three songs from which are out this morning (Oct. 3). “Theia,” the title track, and “Set” introduce a synth-dominated sound as far removed as possible from the summer prog/metal companion album PetroDragonic Apocalypse, with nods to techno forefathers such as Kraftwerk and Underworld powering this surprising change of pace.

Here’s the deal with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
NPR

The key to understanding the King Gizzard phenomenon is a willingness to imagine disparate categories in dense overlap, well beyond anything our post-genre pop era might have prepared us for. The group’s six musicians live at the center of a very unlikely Venn diagram: stylistic chameleons on par with Beck and Damon Albarn, prolific at a rate that outpaces even the famously hyper-productive Guided By Voices, mounting completely unpredictable live shows with the jam band ethos of Phish. Led by 32-year-old primary songwriter Stu Mackenzie, they have released 24 studio albums since 2010, five of which dropped in 2022. (Two of those, the MGMT-ish Omnium Gatherum and the groovy jazz-fusion opus Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava, are good entry points for the uninitiated.) The records tend to be organized around genre and musical high concepts — garage rock, various flavors of psychedelia, electronic excursions, prog, blue-eyed soul and several albums exploring the possibilites of microtonal tuning.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Unveil New Album PetroDragonic Apocalypse: Stream
Consequence of Sound

King Gizzard clocked back into somewhat familiar instrumentation with PetroDragonic Apocalypse (for short, because, of course), which marks their 24th studio album. Self-described as “heavy as fuck,” the new record harks back to 2019’s Infest the Rat’s Nest by diving into the metal pools of experimentally hard-hitting riffs and songs about witches and wizards. They teased the album with lead single “Gila Monster.”

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Deal in Black Magic and Black Comedy on ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’
Exclaim!

Finally — King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have made an album about lizards and wizards. With a title impossibly more tongue-twisting than the band’s name, and one which seems to beg for a sepia-toned fantasy map in the vinyl gatefold to fully understand its lore, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation finds King Gizzard opening the medieval spellbook on their most blackened, ominous album to date.

A Murky Shade Of Death: King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard Conjures A Heavy Metal Concept Album
SPIN

Thankfully, this bleak turn of events chronicled on King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s new album, PetroDragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, is just a fantasy (for now). But as some kind of metaphor for how humanity has ravaged its only home to the point of no return and is actively contributing to its own demise, it feels frighteningly, powerfully real.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard isn’t a band, it’s a lifestyle. And a strange one at that.
The Chicago Tribune

“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.”

Exclaim!’s Staff Picks: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Lean into Heavy Fantasy with “Gila Monster”
Exclaim!

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.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce 24th album, ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’
NME

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.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Detail New Album PetroDragonic Apocalypse, Share “Gila Monster”: Stream
Consequence

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 Announce 24th Album PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless
Stereogum

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.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Announce Album, Share Video for New Song “Gila Monster”: Watch
Pitchfork

“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.”

King Gizzard Announce New Album ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’
Clash Magazine

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 & The Lizard Wizard share video for ‘Astroturf’
xsnoize

Today, they present a new video for “Astroturf,” a track off of 2022’s Changes. The album was originally conceived in 2017, and is a concept album that is ” built around this one chord progression – every track is like a variation on a theme,” says Stu Mackenzie. “Astroturf” is one of those creations, a 70s-tinged soft-pop earworm. The accompanying video was filmed in the band’s Australian studio. The band adds: “We filmed this live then overdubbed the fuck over it. Recording is fun.”

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: “Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava”
Pitchfork

“Certainly, this is one of their loosest, most sprawling records, with almost every track exceeding seven minutes; on the other hand, even the most outré odysseys are less a product of improvisation than intricate arrangement. When the Afrobeat-steeped “Ice V” and the dizzying 13-minute showstopper “Hell’s Itch” settle into their fleet-footed grooves and start introducing new ideas every 16 bars, the effect is less like a band showing off their chops and more like rotating MCs chiming in with a few rhymes on a posse cut. And where past Gizzard epics have embraced a racetrack construction, whipping in and out of recurring motifs at regular intervals, the mischievous “Magma” is built more like a spiral staircase, its guitar accents and frisky rhythms swirling skyward en route to the cataclysmic, wah-wah-splattered finale…”

Into the Gizzverse with Shrimp and Juicy
The New Yorker

“King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, the pretty-much-every-genre rock band from Australia, boarded a tour bus in Montreal at 2 a.m. one night this month and arrived in Brooklyn nine hours later. No gig until the following night, in Queens: a rare day off. “I passed out for an hour at the hotel, grabbed a chicken burrito, and here we are,” Ambrose Kenny-Smith, one of the band’s singers and multi-instrumentalists, said that afternoon. “Here” was a skate park under the Kosciuszko Bridge, on the Brooklyn side of Newtown Creek. “On off days, we try to go for a skate,” he said. “It keeps the mental health in check.””

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