King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard further indulge their psytrance obsession on ‘Alien Metal’
They’ve flirted with almost every genre imaginable; now the Aussie alt-rockers plunge even deeper into the world of psychedelic trance.
★★☆☆☆
Photo: Maclay Heriot
Buckle up, baby, we’re heading back to those hazy ‘90s days of acid house and techno. And who better to put our trust in with some intergalactic psytrance squelch than King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard? There aren’t many bands more willing to experiment and straddle multiple genres than this lot.
For the uninitiated, KGLW drop records like they’re going out of style (for reference: 2022 saw five releases unveiled). So, twenty-eighth album Alien Metal dropping over a year after their previous effort showed just how much importance they’d placed on it. Comparatively, this was a long time coming.
Alien Metal is definitely one of the most avant-garde, off-piste experiments the band have ever pulled, but it hasn’t come without warning. The electro-trance path has been drawing them in throughout their previous three releases and many of the sounds heard on the new album come from a souped-up modular synth rig (which they’ve affectionately christened “Nathan”) that the band have used since 2023.
Now into their sixteenth year, the band’s long-time fondness for electronic music drove their enthusiasm for the project. Guitarist and vocalist Joey Walker’s closely linked solo career (as the techno-dub-infused Bullant) helped the rest of the band quickly familiarise themselves with synth usage.
Atmospheric trance-like opener Sapience is where we begin our hallucinogenic trip. It’s a slow burner that later expands into a much bigger sound, more reminiscent of house, characterised by higher-BPM techno beats and amplified, pulsing bass. A smooth transition into the title track keeps the rave alive, with some pitch-shifted, robotic vocoders delivering a string of hazy, detached lyrics — foreshadowing some kind of ethereal rebirth, summed up perfectly in key lyrics: “Astral blacksmith won’t you give me a fix” and “Summer breeze laced with PCP”.
Washing over the driving pulse with lighter, watery tones, Superheavy, Supercritical embraces more of a dance direction, with keys and echoed, repetitive lyrics. Kill For The Steel heads down a darker, industrial path that immediately feels more effective, building tension before delivering the EDM drop it promises from the outset: with punchy beats, looped metallic frequencies and scaling snare bursts.
At this point, you can hear slight shifts in style between each number, enabling standout tracks Level 5 (an industrial-jungle hybrid) and Uqt (a sharp, suffocating earworm) to have their time to shine. Despite vocal layering and high-pitched repetition of the hook “Gimme some of that uqt, that uqt, uqt” becoming jarring on the latter, this track benefits from the addition of crunchy guitar, warring against racing synth bass and getting its one and only outing on the album. It’s a refreshing change, but one that maybe came too late in the game.
Sprawling outro Atomic Collapse starts muffled, before eventually acting as a comedown that sends you into a melted, low-frequency hypnosis. Like a UFO lifting off, listeners get a rising, floating feeling from the light, dreamy textures and ambient undercurrents – whilst remaining chaotic enough to fit that intergalactic freak theme – until finally spluttering to an abrupt end.
Like some of KGLW’s previous entries, all tracks flow seamlessly. This is something they do brilliantly. In keeping with the whole sci-fi setting, there’s something quite fitting about the whole thing functioning as one infinite loop — if you want it to, that is. If not, then you can simply enjoy forty minutes of this interesting, extraterrestrial electro.
Ultimately, the whole concept is captivating, but it’s one that’s divided fans. Some insist that the core dystopian themes still resemble King Gizzard’s DNA, though others are frustrated at the absence of guitar-heavy, dual-drumming psych rock. I can’t help but sit in the latter camp. That material was exciting, and undoubtedly more memorable.
That said, it is the album to turn to if you want to spontaneously simulate an at-home rave. Get me a strobe light and some UV body paint, and I’ll be good to go.
Alien Metal is out now via p(doom) Records.