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May 16, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Jason Galea

Melbourne-based psych-rock group King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced an elaborately titled new album, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, and shared its first single, “Gila Monster,” via a music video. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is due out June 16 via KGLW. Check out “Gilla Monster” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

SPOD directed the video for “Gilla Monster” and had this to say in a press release: “I wanted to shoot Lord of the Rings 4 but also make a video game, so I mixed both mediums and came up with this majestic journey for truth and power in a cursed world. I mixed 3D animation, modeling and live footage in a 3D video game program to create this marvelous voyage of man and beast. Friend or foe?”

PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is the band’s 24th album and a double LP. It is their second album of thrash metal, following 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest.

“When we made Rats’ Nest, it felt experimental,” says the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie. “Like, ‘Here’s this music that some of us grew up on but we’d never had the guts or confidence to really play before, so let’s give it a go and see what happens.’ And when we made that album we were like, ‘Fuck, why did it take us so long to do this?’ It’s just so much fun to play that music, and those songs work so well when we play them live. So we always had it in our minds to make another metal record.”

The ever prolific King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released five albums in 2022: Made in Timeland, Omnium Gatherum, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava, Laminated Denim, and Changes.

“We worked on it the same way we started our Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava album last year,” says Mackenzie of the process behind PetroDragonic Apocalypse. “We wrote a song a day, and we came into the practice space with no riffs, no tunes, no ideas, and started from scratch. And we jammed, and recorded everything, and pieced the songs together from that. I’d sketched out the story the songs would tell, and I’d portioned it out into seven song titles, with a short paragraph of what would happen in the song. I guess we kind of made the record backwards.”

Of the fantasy themes on the record, Mackenzie says: “We wanted to start the story in the real world, and then send it to hell. It’s about humankind and it’s about planet Earth but it’s also about witches and dragons and shit.”

Of the band’s future, the musician adds: “I’m not a tortured artist, I’m more of a mad professor. And after a bunch of records crafted out of jams, we’re very much ready to make records in the old-fashioned way of writing the songs before we enter the studio, once these ones are done.”

PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation Tracklist:

1. Motor Spirit - 8:33
2. Supercell - 5:06
3. Converge - 6:16
4. Witchcraft - 5:04
5. Gila Monster - 4:36
6. Dragon - 9:45
7. Flamethrower - 9:21
8. Dawn of Eternal Night feat. Leah Senior (Audiobook, VINYL EXCLUSIVE) - 14:22

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Tour Dates:

Sun. May 28 - Boston, MA @ Boston Calling
Thu. June 1 – Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Underground - SOLD OUT
Fri. June 2 - Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Underground - SOLD OUT
Sat. June 3 - Grundy County, TN @ The Caverns Amphitheater - SOLD OUT
Sun. June 4 - Grundy County, TB @ The Caverns Amphitheater
Wed. June 7 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre - SOLD OUT
Thu. June 8 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre - EARLY SHOW
Thu. June 8 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre - LATE SHOW - SOLD OUT
Sun. June 11 - Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed - SOLD OUT
Mon. June 12 - Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed - SOLD OUT
Tue. June 13 - Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed - SOLD OUT
Fri. June 16 - Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms - SOLD OUT
Sat. June 17 - Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms - SOLD OUT
Sun. June 18 - Carnation, WA @ Carnation Farms - SOLD OUT
Wed. June 21 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Hollywood Bowl - 3 HOUR MARATHON SET
Sat. July 22 - Byron Bay, AU @ Splendor In The Grass Festival
Thu. Aug. 10 - Gothenburg, SE @ Way Out West Festival
Sat. Aug. 12 - Piestany, SK @ Grape Festival
Mon. Aug. 14 - Verbier, CH @ Palp Festival
Tue. Aug. 15 - Cologne, DE @ E-Werk
Wed. Aug. 16 - Luxembourg, LU @ Den Atelier
Thu. Aug. 17 - Saint-Malo, FR @ La Route Du Rock
Sat. Aug. 19 - Biddinghuizen, NL @ Lowlands Festival
Sun. Aug. 20 - Kiewit-Hasselt, BE @ Pukkelpop
Mon. Aug. 21 - Munich, DE @ Tonhalle
Tue. Aug. 22 - Padua, IT @ Parco Della Musica
Thu. Aug. 24 - Barcelona, ES @ Plaza Mayor De El Poble Espanyol
Sat. Aug. 26 - Torremolinos, ES @ Canela Party
Sun. Aug. 27 - Madrid, ES @ La Riviera
Tue. Aug. 29 - Toulouse, FR @ Le Bikini
Wed. Aug. 30 - La Rochelle, FR @ La Sirene
Thu. Aug. 31 - Lille, FR @ L’Aeronef
Sun. Sep. 3 - Sixpenny Handley, GB @ End Of The Road Festival

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