King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - 'Level 5'
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard step into a new realm with ‘Level 5’.
Towards the end of 2025, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, in their unfrilly and idiosyncratic way, put on a short tour of vibrant dance gigs. These much-celebrated evenings took elements of techno, drum ‘n bass, and big beat to form a semi-improvised set, which was as energetic as it was intricate. Along with many others who failed to grab a ticket for these high-demand shows, I watched online as the progressive Australian psych-rockers streamed themselves tearing up their playbook for a completely new chapter of their journey. It was surely inevitable that this would result in a studio-based effort, and Level 5 is the first offering as such, a beats-laden grimy soundscape, purpose-built for the sweat and pulse of dancefloors around the world.
Though this is a step into a new realm, there is precedent in the Gizzverse for electronic-focused sounds - 2023’s album The Silver Chord can be seen as a peek under the pot lid of what is now bubbling over. There’s a lot of familiarity with songs from further back in their catalogue too, such as Intrasport and Cyboogie. But while those dalliances were one-offs, this is a much more deliberate shift. After a few toe-dips into the pool, the band are apparently dive bombing head-first into their rave era.
Level 5, and it’s accompanying album Alien Metal, promises to fully immerse the listener in this novel departure from their established sound. Yes, King Gizz are all about genre-bending; they incorporate many different (and often completely opposed) styles of music from album to album. But crucially, whether it was psychedelic surf-rock, ambitious microtonal explorations, or just good old fashioned doom metal, one constant would remain - Guitars. Doing away as they are with any vestiges of being a rock band means that this time, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, after a career of scene-shifts and curveballs, have made their biggest step into the unknown to date.
Level 5 is a typical representation of this new era. It’s not necessarily provided with a hook, or even a traditional structure. Like those intoxicating live sets from last year, the song mutates and evolves through cycles of itself, meandering through the same ideas from a different perspective minute-on-minute. Its unceremonious start and abrupt finish indicates, tantalisingly, that this will be one small part of a full-album cut, a studio-based distillation of what they were putting out to gleeful crowds at the back end of last year.
And if you’ve been a fan of their work to date, then you’ll dig this. Because to truly love King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, you have to accept their chaotic spirit and experimental vision. They will come out with records that leave you miffed, they will have entire genres in their repertoire you don’t care for, but on the flipside of all that, when they nail the particular groove you’re missing, it crashes like a tsunami in your brain. This is what we keep coming back to this extraordinary and unique band for. That is why each King Gizz release is so hotly anticipated, and why even on the brink of (count ‘em!) their 28th full-length LP, people are still hungry for more.
Words by Adam Davidson
