King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have Set a Path to World Domination

Following the release of their 24th record, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have announced their 25th studio album, The Silver Cord, to be released towards the end of October. Three singles dropped last week along with a 12 minute music video tying them together. The band is seen wearing matching red tinted sunglasses and black clothing while they sing and dance in the Australian wilderness. Sonically, these three songs are in stark contrast to the heavy metal album which predates it. Fans have speculated for months that the two records to be released this year would sound completely different from one another, making The Silver Cord feel like yin, to PetroDragonic’s yang.

And it’s true, the three singles released last week, “Theia,” “The Silver Cord,” and “Set” all feature electronic dance music, akin to 80’s Devo, whereas PetroDragonic thrashed, wailed, and sludged its way to our hearts and souls. Now, it’s no surprise that King Gizzard has announced a follow up album so quickly, and it’s no surprise that the sound is completely different, as thats how the fella’s go about their business. But I’ll tell you what is surprising. For some reason, in their thirteen years of making music, not one of them have announced their plans for world domination.

Am I crazy? It should be any day now, right? A band as prophetic as King Gizzard has to have something up their sleeve. It’s clear as day, they release an apocalyptic heavy metal album in the first half of the year, and the fans go wild. Everyone’s losing their minds talking about gila monsters and witchcraft, and then a few months later we’re told to rave out to some song called “Gilgamesh” and nearly everyone in the fanbase is like, “Yeah, lets do it.” I for one don’t listen to any heavy metal or electronic music, and I heard these songs and was completely onboard. I gotta know how “Gilgamesh” sounds. Just looking at the album cover for The Silver Cord I’m thinking “Cool, this is me. This is who I’ve always been.”

And that couldn’t be further from the truth. My favorite Gizzard albums are further back in their career when they were still discovering their sound, or when they decided that they’ll never discover their sound. I love, in no particular order, Float Along/Fill Your Lungs, Eyes Like the Sky, and Flying Microtonal Banana. If you’re not familiar with those albums, one of them is a bluesy pyschedilic romp, another one is a narrated cowboy adventure, and the third one uses a modded guitar with extra frets so it can play notes that don’t exist in western music.

I’ve been to a couple of shows here in Chicago, and the demographic for their music is all encompassing. Nearly every type of person is there rockin’ and rollin’. There’s people with long thick dreadlocks wearing hemp, there’s skater punks looking to do a backflip, there’s casual indie kids who were crying the night before listening to Boygenius, and then there are actual legit children who absolutely love the music. I saw a post on the subreddit of someone saying that the King Gizzard show they attended was their first ever concert. They posted pictures. Lo and behold, to my surprise, it was a child. And it had me thinking “What am I listening to? Do I like kids music?”

It brought to mind Damon Albarns music with the Gorillaz. Gorillaz were hugely successful with a young audience. I was in fifth grade when I got the Demon Days CD for Christmas, and I loved it. Some of the music scared me, and the scary songs were some of the coolest, “White Light” and “Fire Coming out of the Monkey’s Head” blew my mind, and “O Green World” was my absolute favorite song. Nearly 20 years later and Demon Days is still a stellar album and a standout from the mid 2000's. Jamie Hewlett, the artist who draws the Gorillaz, once said in an interview that its great that kids liked the music, “they buy into it the way they should.” Saying that the music isn’t about the stars on stage, but rather the music being performed. Kids aren’t reading too far into anything and their taste hasn’t been developed, when they hear a song, they like it or they don’t.

I don’t want to steal too much steam from a good video essay explaining the Gorillaz, so I’ll link it right here. But to summarize, the Gorillaz have defied genre by seemlessly changing their sound in the middle of a song. And they continue to do it on their recent albums. Here’s a track from their latest record Cracker Island that changes direction on a dime. It’s a stellar song that accomplishes their genreless music, and it came out over 20 years after Damon Albarn made the first Gorillaz record.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are accomplishing the same thing. They’re telling their fans to leave their taste at the door. One album is heavy metal, the next one is electronic dance, and the one after that is going to be 20's swing. Enjoy it when its fresh and get ready for something else. I know when PetroDragonic released I thought to myself “They make so much music, I feel like I can never sit with one album and enjoy it.” That notion might be true, but thats not what their goal is. Their goal is plain and simple, total and absolute world domination. The best way to take over the world is to get the kids to love you and the adults to respect you. Kind of like Santa Claus.

And similar to the Gorillaz, there’s an extended gizzverse that ties all the albums together. Is it coherent? Sort of. Does it matter? Not necessarily. Is it the focus? Not at all. The focus is the music. But its music about a cyborg that vomits so hard that he murders the universe, or a cowboy whose witnessed so much tragedy that he becomes the fabled boogeyman of the west. The Gizzverse happens in the background so that dedicated fans can dig a little further. If you like the music then you like the band, and if you dislike one album, don’t worry, there’s 24 other albums(and counting) so you’re bound to like something.

I’ve been saying for years that at some point we’re going to start seeing jokes about King Gizzard, they’ll get too big and they’ll be easy to make fun of. It’ll be similar to how people make fun of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Little jabs that are ultimately meaningless. But it hasn’t happened. Because why would you make fun of artists who continuously work on their craft and at no point do they turn up their nose to another artists work.

So, when do our lizard overlords announce their plan? Or does the plan unfold and we suddenly realize that we’re living in a world dominated by Australian psychedelics? Either option is fine by me, as long as the fella’s are nice about it.