Australian psych sextet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced they will release a brand new album, complete with the expected lengthy title of PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation through their own KGWR label on June 16.
The new album sees the band cranking the guitars up, taking its cues from 2019's thrash metal excursion Infest The Rats’ Nest. A new single, Gila Monster has been released, which you can see in this week's Tracks Of The Week on Friday.
“When we made Rats’ Nest, it felt experimental,” says Gizzard leader Stu Mackenzie. “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.
"We wanted to start the story in the real world, and then send it to hell,” Mackenzie adds. “It’s about humankind and it’s about planet Earth but it’s also about witches and dragons and shit” he laughs. “Lyrically, PetroDragonic Apocalypse is fun on the surface, but profound if you dig a little deeper. Shakespeare and the Bible were definite inspirations for the voice of some of the lyrics, which play out the album’s blackly comedic and bleakly destructive tale with the highest of drama. It’s like a secondary voice on the album – it appears in each song, and it’s like words that were spoken 500 years ago, or 2,000 years ago."
You can check out the new album's striking artwork and tracklisting below.
Pre-order PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation
1. Motor Spirit
2. Supercell
3. Converge
4. Witchcraft
5. Gila Monster
6. Dragon
7. Flamethrower
8. Dawn of Eternal Night feat. Leah Senior (Audiobook, Vinyl Only)
