King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have shared ‘Gila Monster’, the first preview of their forthcoming double-album PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. The new song is a riff-heavy, metal-horns-aloft thrasher that arrives alongside a video directed by SPOD combining 3D animation, modelling and live footage in a 3D video game program.
“I wanted to shoot Lord of the Rings 4 but also make a video game, so I mixed both mediums and came up with this majestic journey for truth and power in a cursed world,” he said in a statement. Watch the video for ‘Gila Monster’ below – PetroDragonic Apocalypse is available for pre-order via the band’s Gizzverse webstore.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – ‘Gila Monster’
PetroDragonic Apocalypse, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s 24th album, will arrive on Friday, 16th June. ‘Gila Monster’ seems like a good indication of the sonic direction of the album, which appears to be a sort of spiritual successor to 2019’s metal record Infest the Rats’ Nest.
“When we made Rats’ Nest, it felt experimental,” said King Gizz’s Stu Mackenzie 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 band approached the project in a similar way to their 2022 album Ice, Death Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava, writing one song a day together without any pre-conceived riffs or ideas, opting instead to start from scratch. “We jammed, and recorded everything, and pieced the songs together from that,” Mackenzie added.
As for the album’s lyrical themes, Mackenzie said he drew on fantasy lore but also tried to situate the record within more tangible concerns. “We wanted to start the story in the real world, and then send it to hell,” he said. “It’s about humankind and it’s about planet Earth but it’s also about witches and dragons and shit.”
King Gizzard announced PetroDragonic Apocalypse last week. It follows a busy year for the band, who released five albums in 2022: Made in Timeland, Omnium Gatherum, Laminated Denim, Changes and Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava.
At the time of writing, the band’s only Australian show on the books for the rest of the year is an appearance at this year’s edition of Splendour in the Grass in July. They’ll play the festival’s second day – Saturday, 22nd July – along with Flume, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sam Fender, Little Simz, Arlo Parks, Tkay Maidza, Telenova and more.
Further Reading
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Review – Frenetic Momentum and Kinetic Energy in Sydney
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Have Announced Their 24th Album, ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’
Tame Impala’s Jay Watson (aka GUM) and King Gizzard’s Ambrose Kenny-Smith Unite on New Single
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