They’d made 20 albums in 10 years. Then they released three new albums – yes, three – in the last month. But there is method in this madness, as King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s affable vocalist, co-guitarist and head honcho Stu Mackenzie explains. “There’s always a plan when we make an album,” he says. “Sometimes it’s still being formulated throughout the process, and sometimes it’s more of a mission statement, a manifesto. Usually we’ll have a couple of songs that have one vibe and some that have another, so we join the ones that have similar themes then write more songs like that. It’s like we’re creating brothers and sisters for them.”
Since their 2012 debut 12 Bar Bruise, this Melbourne-based collective have populated their ‘Gizzverse’ with their own trippy cocktail of garage-psych rock, proggy jams, thrash metal and world music. From the thrilling experiments of 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana to the balls-out metal of 2019’s Infest The Rats’ Nest, their catalogue shows how compelling and eclectic they are. And in 2022, they’ve been more prolific than ever before.
April saw release of their 20th LP, – their first double album – which embraced alt-rock, hip-hop, space rock, metal, jazz, soul and more. And in October came three albums in quick succession: first, , then, and finally . Thisseems to have been the most straightforward affair.
