King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Murder Of The Universe

Murder Of The Universe is the tenth studio by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, released in June 2017 via Flightless Records.

Formed in Melbourne in 2010, by Ambrose Kenny Smith (vocals, harmonica, synthesizer), Cook Craig (guitar, bass guitar), Eric Moore (drums, percussion, theremin), Joey Walker (guitar, vocals), Lucas Skinner (bass guitar), Michael Cavanaugh (drums), and Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar, flute). The band are noted for their energetic live performances and their prolific recording output, releasing nine albums since 2012.

The band's early work saw them primarily perform in a style that blended 1960s surf music, garage rock and psychedelic rock, however the band has since added acid rock and krautrock to its repertoire.

 

Murder Of The Universe is the second of five albums that the band plans to release in 2017, and follows Flying Microtonal Banana released in February 2017.

Murder of the Universe is a concept album broken up into three separate chapters with each story telling a tale of science fiction and the eventual destruction of the universe.

Australian singer-songwriter Leah Senior narrates the first two chapters and a computer voice generated system narrates the final chapter.

The first, The Tale of the Altered Beast explores themes of temptation, and tells a tale of a human who stumbles upon a mystical human/beast hybrid, dubbed the Altered Beast. The human becomes interested in being altered and eventually merges to create a newly altered beast with murderous intentions. Eventually the beast loses track of its identify and dies of insanity, decaying into the earth.

The second chapter, The Lord of Lightning vs. Balrog is more focused on a big battle between two entities who represent the force of light versus darkness.

The third chapter, Han-Tyumi & The Murder of the Universe, is about a cyborg who gains consciousness and decides that he is obsessed with vomiting and dying, but cannot. He decides to create a creature dubbed the "Soy-Protein Munt Machine" who's only purpose is to vomit. As the creature rejects his love Han-Tyumi decides to merge with the machine, which spirals the machine out of control. This machine then explodes and infinitely expels vomit, which eventually engulfs the entire universe, hence the title of the album.

The album showcases the core King Gizzard sound trademarks and incorporates progressive and psychedelic elements mixed with guitar riffs and garage punk and heavy metal. One of the standout tracks on the album is “The Lord of Lightning”.

Check out the following tracks from the album:  Han-Tyumi & The Murder Of The Universe; and “The Lord Of Lightning vs Balrog”.

This “Digital Black Edition” LP record is on black vinyl with a printed booklet and digital download code, pressed in Australia.