King Gizzard & the Wizard Lizard, the prolific Australian rock act known for traversing genres, is returning to thrash metal with a new album titled “Petrodragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation.”
Bet you can’t say that three times fast.
“Petrodragonic Apocalypse,” the band’s 24th album, is out June 16 via their KGLW label. In tandem with the announcement, King Gizzard released the record’s first single, “Gila Monster,” along with a spooky music video in which frontman Stu Mackenzie wears a cloak and sings atop a snowy mountain while the rest of the band gathers around a witch’s cauldron.
The band is also about to embark on an international tour, kicking off May 28 at Boston Calling and wrapping up Sept. 3 at England’s End of the Road Festival. The tour includes multi-show residencies in Chicago, Denver, Seattle and Pelham, Tenn. On June 21, they’ll play a “three-hour marathon set” at their biggest single-venue show to date at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl.
King Gizzard, which consists of Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith,Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Lucas Harwood and Michael Cavanagh, dove head-first into thrash metal with the 2019 album “Infest the Rats’ Nest.”
According to a press release sent by the band, “An off-the-cuff experiment,‘Rats’ Nest’went on to become one of the group’s favorites among their discography, and the album’s neck-snapping, devil’s-horn-throwing anthems remain highlights in Gizzard setlists to this day, stirring moshpits into ecstasy every night. It had been intended as a one-off, but ever since that maiden voyage into the feral wastelands of thrash, the Gizzards have heard the siren call of metal in the wind.”
King Gizzard has released nine studio albums since then, including five in 2022 alone.
Watch the video for “Gila Monster” below:
