Melbourne’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are a once-in-a-generation group playing a heady combination of psychedelia, prog rock, freakbeat, jazz, heavy metal and Krautrock at a breathless punk pace. Today they introduce Murder of the Universe, to be released June 23rd via ATO Records.

With the album’s tracks separated into three separate chapters, you can now watch the new video for all of “Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe”. Lit by thunderclaps and lightning, MOTU inhabits a sonic landscape of death, decay, ossification, fossilization, rebirth. It is a place occupied by wandering shape-shifting beasts, bleeding skies, pools of blood, great fires and mushroom clouds; a planet rent asunder by conflict.

“We’re living in dystopian times that are pretty scary and it’s hard not to reflect that in our music,” says front man Stu Mackenzie. “It’s almost unavoidable. Some scientists predict that the downfall of humanity is just as likely to come at the hands of Artificial Intelligence, as it is war or viruses or climate change. But these are fascinating times too. Human beings are visual creatures – vision is our primary instinct, and this is very much a visual, descriptive, bleak record. While the tone is definitely apocalyptic, it is not necessarily purely a mirror of the current state of humanity. It’s about new non-linear narratives.”

Theirs is a high-velocity sound, each album a transporting diversion down a slippery worm-hole steered by seven minds sharing one on-going journey. In years to come King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard will be judged not by their separate albums, but by a body of work where themes, melodies, motifs, riffs and ideas resurface and recur, each album peeling back a layer of the onion to glimpse at past and future alike. Their albums should be treated as portals through which you can move from one to the other. Songs sync together, records can be played in loops and past ideas recur or are reprised, and then woven into new textures. “These ideas aren’t necessarily contrived,” said Mackenzie. “Sometimes they just happen.”

‘Murder of the Universe’ Track Listing

Chapter 1: The Tale Of The Altered Beast

A New World
Altered Beast I
Alter Me I
Altered Beast II
Alter Me II
Altered Beast III
Alter Me III
Altered Beast IV
Life / Death

Chapter 2: The Lord Of Lightning Vs. Balrog

Some Context
The Reticent Raconteur
The Lord Of Lightning
The Balrog
The Floating Fire
The Acrid Corpse

Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi And The Murder Of The Universe

Welcome To An Altered Future
Digital Black
Han-Tyumi, The Confused Cyborg
Soy-Protein Munt Machine
Vomit Coffin
Murder Of The Universe

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard live

US TOUR DATES
4/11 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
4/12 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
4/14 – Indio, CA – Coachella
4/17 – Los Angeles, CA – Roxy
4/18 – Las Vegas, NV – Pool @ Hard Rock Hotel
4/19 – Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom
4/21 – 4/23 – Indio, CA – Coachella

EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
5/5 – 6/8 – Madrid, Spain – Sound Isidro 2017
5/31 – 6/4 – Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound Festival 2017
6/3 – London, UK – Field Day 2017
6/5 – 6/8 – Marina di Ravenna, Italy – Beaches Brew 2017
6/8 – 6/10 – Porto, Portugal – NOS Primavera Sound 2017
6/9 – 6/11 – Nimes, France – This Is Not A Love Song 2017
6/13 – Brighton, UK – Concorde 2
6/14 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall
6/15 – London, UK – O2 Forum Kentish Town
6/16 – 6/18 – Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands – Best Kept Secret Festival 2017
6/16 – 6/18 – Mannheim, Germany – Maifeld Derby 2017
6/22 – Paris, France – Cabaret Sauvage
7/21 – 7/23 – Byron Bay, NSW, Australia – Splendour in the Grass Festival 2017