To make the hardest, heaviest album of their career, the prolific seven-headed King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard scaled back to a hydra.

Following on from their shredding singles 'Self-Immolate' and 'Planet B', the band have officially announced their upcoming 15th(!!) studio album, titled Infest The Rat's Nest.

The band's second album for 2019 (following on from April's boogie 'n' blues-themed Fishing For Fishies) the nine-track effort draws influence from 80's thrash metal masters - Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Motörhead - and fuses King Gizz's oddball charisma with hacksaw guitar riffs, gruff vocals, and blastbeat drumming.

Interestingly, Infest The Rats' Nest was recorded by a scaled-back three-piece line-up. Stu Mackenzie and Joey Walker handled all the guitar and bass parts, and Michael Cavanagh did the drums, ensuring "tight arrangements and maximum velocity," according to a press release. It continues:

"The band have always enjoyed a fluid approach to writing and recording and with guitarist Cook Craig and keyboardist/harmonic 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 [Records]."

Update: King Gizz have shared a new song and video called 'Organ Farmer'.

The final part in a video trilogy from director John Angus Stewart, the clip has the band - scrawled in black marker - trashing a car and going wild with the antagonist from the 'Self-Immolate' and 'Planet B' videos before being "surrounded by a loving and devoted cult ready to leave the experiment." Watch below.

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The brutal sound of Infest The Rat's Nest matches its themes of ecological disaster. We've already had a slice of the horror in 'Self-Immolate' and 'Planet B', and Stu had this to say about the album's 'Cli-Fi' (climate change x science fiction) narrative.

"The A-side of the album is set in the near future and is about real shit going on right now... 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.”

Hear Stu and Cavs talk about the narrative structure of the new album and where it might fit into the whole Gizzverse fan theory.



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Rest assured, the full seven-piece line-up will come together to tear the nation's venues a new one on a big Australian tour kicking off next week. They'll also be heading overseas to play massive shows at Fuji Rock, Summerstage in Central Park, New York City, and London's 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace.