King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard “Alien Metal” Review
Written by Beau Croxton
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Alien Metal— artwork by Jason Galea
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard fire up their synth rack like Frankenstein’s monster to create Alien Metal— it’s a transformative EDM rip-ride to a brand new universe for the group.
Prolific Australian band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have returned with their 28th album in fourteen years, Alien Metal, which serves as an amalgamation of their recent live electronic experimentation. Since 2024, the group has been extensive live jams with a massive, Eurorack-incorporated synthesizer setup that they have dubbed “Nathan”.
Their Nathan obsession spawned tons of “Rave Shows” in 2025, and more recently, you could spot bandleader Stu Mackenzie performing free, improvised solo electronic sets in Melbourne. After many scrapped attempts at a new Nathan-centric studio LP, the group found success with a locked-in, hour-long synth session between bandmates Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie in the key of F# that clocked in at 143 BPM. From there, the group sculpted and fleshed out the material that went on to become Alien Metal.
The result is an intense mix of thrilling and occasionally ambient electronic music that showcases the band confidently tearing through numerous, rave-y, electronic subgenres. The group leans heavily into sonic world building– Alien Metal is a committed effort that combines cinematic and atmospheric touches with more hard-edged and muscular moments. The group has come a long way with many elements of their electronic music, as much of their new chops feel like a quantum leap from the ambience of “Amanesis” from Chunky Shrapnel, their brief electronic excursions of Made In Timeland, the synth-pop of 2021’s Butterfly 3000 and their recent synth-led effort, 2023’s The Silver Cord. Alien Metal resembles the dark and experimental corner of the band’s discography, while occasionally incorporating moments of euphoric bliss that breaks up the heaviness.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard by Maclay Heriot
Frequently on Alien Metal, the band ditches the song structures that define a large chunk of their work. Nathan takes center stage for full focus, while vocals stay more sparse, cryptic and thematic. The band's voices have morphed unrecognizably into the machine, as the vocoded and pitch-shifted vocals sound robotic and alien. Ultimately, it fits well within the thematic backdrop of their cosmic electronic music. The group opts to ride a wave of abrasive synths, large cinematic rises and satisfying drops that often aim to send your adrenaline from level 5 to 100.
Despite the record often flaunting King Gizzard as you’ve never heard them on a studio album, it's a psychedelic experience that has tons of Gizzard flair: it yields seamless transitions, exotic scales and robo-sci-fi lore to add to the band’s “Gizzverse”. In a purely King Gizzard fashion, the record is also a Möbius strip of pumping electronic music that transitions seamlessly and loops right back into track 1.
Check out our Track By Track review of Alien Metal
“Sapience” kicks the party off immediately with bouncy electronic drums and a pulsating techno vibe. It slips you into a trance while brash, metallic percussion brings some otherworldly energy. It launches into dazzling minor-key synth leads and E-cymbals that que a hard drop into a 90’s pump-up jam, which ramps up excellently into the title track.
“Alien Metal” is a highlight that opens with vocoded lyrics with a pure KGLW flair: “Fall asleep, under the stars / summer breeze laced with PCP”. The track builds until truly setting sail at 2:40 with a hard segment that could easily soundtrack the blood-rave scene in Wesley Snipes’ Blade. Immediately after, a phrygian-dominant scale jam blasts in with synth leads darting around like mad; it's moments like this that make Alien Metal thrilling, and characteristically Gizzard. The “metal” part of the album title starts to sing when cymbals crash aggressively among ripping synth arpeggios and robotic vocals that declare transformation and rebirth. Cinematic vocals pads expertly build suspense, and aggressive bass-synths charge brutally through the channels to take this abrasive cut through the stratosphere.
“Super Heavy, Super Critical” flaunts a chopped-up vocal sample that feels closer to a euphoric cut by bandmember Joey Walker’s project Bullant, rather than the robotic sci-fi approach found on the rest of Alien Metal. It takes the dark tone from outer space back down to earth for something more upbeat. The second half cooks hard while touching on some groovy synths that recall 90’s house. You may feel like you're at some killer party in Miami as opposed to the mothership, but it’s a dance party nonetheless. The uneasy, haunting synth progression that glistens over the top of the outro sets the tone perfectly for the next potent stretch.
“Kill For the Steel” is an eerie highlight that opens ominously with an evil Daft-Punk-esque vocoder that warns: “We don’t wish death, but we will kill for the steel”. A bone-chilling segment drops that sounds like a demonic robot simultaneously sneezing and hiccuping, until it’s followed by a barrage of chaotic, ass-shaking percussion. Is it insanely odd? Yes. Is it insanely awesome? Absolutely. Melancholic icy synths soar over the track, and zany percussion segments raise the hype. It all serves as the perfect launching pad for their ripsnorter of a lead single, “Level 5”.
“Level 5” immediately feels like an explosion and kickass conclusion to the tension built in the opening half of the record. This early Prodigy-style banger details themes of autonomy and machinic revolution. It boasts some quaking, distorted bass-synths and machine gun-fire breakbeats that are absolutely killer. Peep the video below, which covers Alien Metal’s sci-fi-horror themes in a freakish, iconic way.
“Rapid Alpha Decay” leads with airy synths and shimmering string sounds that create a mystical vibe and a breakthrough moment. A warped vocoder vocal declares: “Pump my body full with lead / Feel it run through metallic / Jumpstart my heart – static / Transcend through the rapid”. It's one of the most out-there cuts; it leans hard into atmosphere, themes and texture, while providing one of the most psychedelic synth blasts on the entire record.
“Uqt” is a highlight which flaunts a catchy, high-pitched falsetto hook that is one of the few moments that even slightly resembles Ambrose Kenny-Smith. A vocoder verse leads with Frankenstein-esque drama : “Electroshock therapy / They wanna cut me open and take a peak / Then out come the clipboards as they study me / Temple to temple, volts 120 /No anaesthesia and no pain relief”.
This track boasts a metal-sounding motif that would have fit nicely as a sludgy riff on something like PetroDragonic Apocalypse’s “Motor Spirit”. The juxtaposition of the sugary vocals and heavy arrangements results in an infectious combo, and the track interestingly unfolds into a space-opera vocoder moment before ravey synths wobble skyward.
“Atomic Collapse” is a 6.5 minute, trippy instrumental freak-out with a build that resembles the cold atmosphere of “Kill For The Steel”. The track weaves through exotic and dark scales while electronic drums skitter furiously. Laser-beam synth blasts pick up the intensity until it all glides into an atmospheric sea of pillowy synths for the last minute. Its final seconds sound like a robot powering down, but if you let it loop seamlessly into track 1, it may as well be the sound of Alien Metal rebooting for another ride around the galaxy.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard by Maclay Heriot
Alien Metal is a dark, interstellar rip-ride that yields many strengths of the band’s ambitious electronic experimentation and their penchant for sci-fi. Fans of the band's “rave shows” should have much to love, as it’s a tightly-wound and carefully crafted take on those recent endeavours. Alien Metal totally goes hard in its biggest moments, and in-between, tension is delivered accordingly. It's very satisfying to hear the band find an interesting arrival point for this experimentation after their extended dedication to the “Nathan” format. The band's ability to be reductive and strip away sounds to build up to thrilling moments is a consistent strength through this bizarre trip of a record. Alien Metal's cinematic flair is also quite otherworldly (someone please hire these mad lads for some epic Sci-fi movie soundtrack already…)
Like many Gizzard projects, their new record is best enjoyed front to back as a non-stop experience that plays out like a movie. But if you separate the Alien Metal songs out of their album context, it does the tunes even more injustice than much of the band’s older work. Track pairings like “Sapience” into “Alien Metal”, or “Kill For The Steel” into “Level 5” thrive on their shared anticipation, build and payoff in grand ways. Many tracks set the stage for big moments and work in tandem; it feels sacrilege to listen to tracks individually once you have the full picture. The full immersive trip plays out like one massive, morphing song.
As with many ambitious Gizzard albums, there’s a few divisive elements that may take some warming to: the sparse, campy robotic vocals and heavy instrumental focus could seem slight at first to fans who might be craving something much more hooky and tuneful. 2023’s The Silver Cord (standard edition) feels like a synth-rock singalong record in comparison to Alien Metal’s more concept-driven vocal moments and it’s instrumentally focused, sci-fi wig-outs. But ultimately, divisiveness and the band’s wide range has never been a means for concern, because one of the most fun parts of being a King Gizzard fan is witnessing how the group can succeed with vastly different approaches and sounds. Alien Metal takes a bold leap into the deep end of something freaky, transformative and often impressive . It’s clear that much of this LP is designed as a dark dance party for their fans to vibe out to, rather than to recite. It’s also very clearly penned by its authors, who have consistently utilized similar themes of futuristic doom and delightfully campy sci-fi in their records such as Murder of the Universe or The Silver Cord.
King Gizzard leans confidently into multiple electronic sub-genres on Alien Metal with unique style and notable effort, and they make their own mark with qualities that are undoubtedly their own. The liner notes claim that Alien Metal was “recorded in the future by aliens”....perhaps it's up to the listener to catch up to this beautifully bizarre and bold new universe.
Occult Highlights: Level 5, Kill For The Steel, Alien Metal, Uqt, Sapience, Atomic Collapse
(…but we recommend you listen in full and let it loop on repeat into cosmic infinity)
8.0/10
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