KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD MARK HIGHEST-EVER FIRST WEEK SALES AND CHART POSITIONS BEHIND INFEST THE RATS' NEST OUT NOW VIA ATO RECORDS
DEBUTED AT #1 ON VINYL CHART,
#2 ON ALTERNATIVE ALBUMS CHART,
#7 ON BILLBOARD TOP ALBUM SALES CHART
AUSTRALIAN SEPTET CURRENTLY ON HEADLINE WORLD TOUR
PLAYING NYC'S CENTRAL PARK SUMMERSTAGE TOMORROW
PLAY THE "MARS FOR THE RICH" VIDEO GAME
Australia's King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have scored
their highest-ever first week sales and chart positions with the release of
their fifteenth studio album, the thrash metal-worshipping Infest The Rats'
Nest (ATO Records). The album, which sold just over 8,600 copies / 10,000
album-equivalent units in its first week, debuted at #1 on the Vinyl chart and
#2 on the Alternative Albums chart, and also came in at #3 on the Independent
Albums chart, #4 on the Rock Albums chart, #7 on the Billboard Top Albums
chart, and #64 on the Billboard 200 chart.
King Gizzard also began their massive headline world tour
earlier this month with a night at Los
Angeles' Greek Theatre. The band will perform at NYC's
Central Park Summerstage tomorrow, and will then continue on through much of
the U.S. and Canada before storming through Europe and Asia this October. See below for the full list of
currently-announced tour dates.
Before releasing the "Mars For The Rich" video
game, the band shared three singles from the album -- the wildly heavy
"Planet B," the chugging "Self-Immolate," and the
blastbeat-laden "Organ Farmer" -- and their absurdly dark
accompanying videos. These new tracks prove that King Gizzard & The Lizard
Wizard aren’t mere dabbling dilettantes when it comes to thrash and metal.
Their love of this ferocious music runs deep, and was previously explored on
2017’s apocalyptic concept album Murder Of The Universe, hinted at during the
award-winning Nonagon Infinity’s more bludgeoning moments and elsewhere in
numerous hardcore psychedelic freak-outs in their back catalogue.
In a display of their defiant creative restlessness, the
prolific group released the decidedly mellower Fishing For Fishies (ATO)
earlier this year, which featured the stomping electro-shuffle
"Cyboogie" and the playful title track.
Praise for Infest The Rats' Nest:
“King Gizzard aren't sugarcoating anything, either musically
or thematically, and that makes for their most timely and political album yet.
It's also one of their most musically compelling
and impressive, too, and that's saying a lot.” - AllMusic
"[Infest The Rats' Nest] finds the band crafting
forceful and ferocious, mosh pit-friendly rippers that are politically and
socially relevant." - Consequence of Sound
"Like the modern thrash revivalists, King Gizzard
combine youthful energy with
enough of their own inimitable style to make this excursion into
the cobwebbed world of thrash fresh and interesting." - Clash
“On Infest the Rats' Nest their garage rock roots are almost
imperceptible, as they commit so heartily to thrash metal and produce an album
placed firmly at the top of its genre.” – PopMatters
###
The planet is in trouble. Dire trouble. But fear not:
Melbourne, Australia seven-piece King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have
returned to save us all, this time armed only with blast beats, an arsenal of
well-oiled guitars that are locked and loaded, and a desire to melt faces clean
off.
Their fifteenth studio album, Infest The Rats’ Nest is by
far The Gizz’s hardest and heaviest album to date. How metal is it? Very Metal.
Maybe even more.
Released just six months after the uplifting blues-rock
boogie and deep electro explorations of Fishing For Fishes, and drawing on the
mid/late 1980s golden period of thrash metal - Metallica and Slayer, certainly,
but also lesser-cited bands such as Exodus, Kreator and Overkill - Infest The
Rats’ Nest sees a wholly unexpected creative detour into new sonic terrain.
“In fourth grade there was an older kid who was into
Rammstein,” explains Stu of his early discovery of metal’s extremities. “I made
friends with him and we put together a performance at our school assembly where
we headbanged to ‘Du Hast’. I got whiplash, which I thought was pretty cool.
That was my introduction to heavy metal, and soon Rammstein led to Metallica,
Metallica led to Slayer, Slayer led to Kreator and Sodom. The German bands really kicked my ass
and scared the hell out of me too. Later on, when I picked up a guitar I
realized that shit was too hard to play, so I got into rock ‘n’ roll and
garage. That was liberating.”
Infest The Rats’ Nest is the sound of King Gizzard & The
Lizard Wizard scratching the thrash metal itch, fully and unequivocally.
Ferocious and direct, "Organ Farmer" is built on drums that gallop
away like a battalion of wild horses over the horizon and a triple guitar
attack set to stun. It’s the type of sub-three minute song you wish Hetfield
and co. still made. ‘Venusian 1’ goes at it even harder, a shredding collection
featuring an army of guitars. A guitarmy, if you will. This is an album
dripping with disdain and disgust for a planet consuming itself in a mass act
of cannibalism. ‘Superbug’ sings of the type of lurgy that will one day destroy
us all, while the utterly nihilistic ‘Self-Immolate’ sees riff piled upon riff
and Stu Mackenzie delivering a vocal display to stand alongside the likes of
Tom Araya or Max Cavalera. “I’m a pretty shit singer but I do think of my voice
as an instrument,” laughs the frontman. “You’ve got lots of tones and different
sounds in there you can experiment with.”
Elsewhere, recent single "Planet B" is a frantic,
bludgeoning beast of a song, a scorched earth blitzkrieg that depicts a world
burning through its natural resources (“Open your eyes and light the fluid /
Get into a petrol siphon / Low on meals, browning fields / Bury children…”) and
charging headlong into a population exodus that may only be solvable through
the colonization of other planets. Breakneck closer ‘Hell’ meanwhile is the
last black bile-spewing word on musical brutality. King Gizzard meet the fears
and anxieties of a planet head on; here is a place where uncompromising music
meets the concerns of contemporary cli-fi (climate fiction), that emerging
movement of writing centered around ecological disaster and its repercussions.
“The A-side of the album is set in the near future and is
about real shit going on right now – especially ecological disaster,” explains
Stu of the album’s grand themes. “We’ve got a lot of things to fear. The B-side
tells the story of a group of rebels who are forced to leave Planet Earth and
try to settle on Venus. I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of
humanity and the future of Planet Earth. Naturally these thoughts seep into the
lyrics.”
After a punishing release and touring schedule of 2017-18,
Infest The Rats’ Nest was recorded by a pared-down King Gizzard line-up. The
band have always enjoyed a fluid approach to writing and recording and with
guitarist Cook Craig and keyboardist/harmonica player Ambrose Kenny-Smith
touring with their other band The Murlocs, bassist Lucas Skinner enjoying
first-time fatherhood and drummer Eric Moore running the band’s own label
Flightless (other bands they have released include Thee Oh Sees, Amyl And The
Sniffers and Tropical Fuck Storm), they were down to a three-piece.
Infest The Rats’ Nest sees Stu and guitarist Joey Walker
sharing all the guitar and bass parts, with (other drummer) Michael Cavanagh
recording all the drums. This small set-up ensures tight arrangements and
maximum velocity - and another curveball from this most unpredictable (yet
consistent) of bands.
Because the stats on King Gizzard’s colorful career are
stacking up fast: 14 albums in 7 years (including 5 in 2017 alone), headline
festival appearances, international critical acclaim - they are now arguably
the world's most innovative, important and productive rock band. And – perhaps
most importantly – a fervent worldwide fanbase who share endless memes, mixes,
videos, graphics, theories and discussions, all through which they explore and
expand what they have termed ‘The Gizzverse’.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are no longer simply a
band, they are an organic cult. Is it vital then that they never repeat
themselves, and continually surprise listeners?
“I think what is important to me is that we keep ourselves
interested,” concludes Stu. “So this band is a highly-selfish endeavor in that
respect. I try not to worry about what others think too much, but the people
around us and the people who come to our shows do wield an influence too. I
think I just wanna make music all the time.”
There’s no rest for the wicked. Raise those devil’s horns
and prepare the spaceships, motherfuckers.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 2019 tour dates
08/27 – New Haven, CT @ College
Street Music
Hall
08/28 – New York, NY @ SummerStage Central Park
08/30 – Philadelphia, PA @
Franklin Music
Hall
08/31 – Washington,
DC @ 9:30 Club
09/01 – Asheville, NC @ New Belgium
Brewing Company
09/02 – Atlanta,
GA @ Tabernacle
09/03 – New Orleans, LA @ Joy
Theater
09/04 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Austin
09/06 – Dallas,
TX @ The Bomb Factory
09/30 - Nottingham, UK @ Rock
City Nottingham
10/01 - Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom Glasgow
10/02 - Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy Leeds
10/03 - Manchester, UK @ Victoria Warehouse Manchester
10/05 - London, UK @ Alexandra
Palace
10/06 - Utrecht,
Netherlands @
Tivoli Vredenburg (SOLD OUT)
10/07 - Utrecht,
Netherlands @
Tivoli Vredenburg
10/08 - Brussels,
Belgium @
Ancienne Belgique (AB)
10/11 - Cologne,
Germany @
Carlswek Victoria
10/12 - Berlin, Germany @ Columbiahalle Berlin
10/13 - Luxembourg
@ Rockhal Club Esch Sur Alzette
10/14 - Paris,
France @
L’Olympia
10/15 - Milan, Italy @ Alcatraz
10/16 - Zürich,
Switzerland @
X-TRA
10/18 - Madrid, Spain @ La Riviera
10/19 - Barcelona,
Spain @ Razzmatazz
CONNECT WITH KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD:
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are: Stu Mackenzie
(vocals/guitar/flute), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (harmonica/vocals), Cook Craig
(guitar/vocals), Eric Moore (drums), Joey Walker (guitar), Lucas Skinner (bass) & Michael
Cavanagh (drums)
Album discography: 12 Bar Bruise (2012), Eyes Like the Sky
(2013), Float Along – Fill Your Lungs (2013), Oddments (2014), I'm
In Your Mind Fuzz (2014), Quarters! (2015), Paper Mache Dream Balloon (2015),
Nonagon Infinity (2016), Flying Microtonal Banana (2017), Murder of the Universe (2017), Sketches of Brunswick East (2017), Polygondwanaland
(2017), Gumboot Soup (2017), Fishing For Fishies (2019)
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