King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Preview Their Umpteenth New Album With “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set”

Anyone who tells you they know what’s next for Australian experimental-rock sextet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is lying, with one exception: The hyper-prolific band is never not announcing a new album. This week, they unveiled The Silver Cord (Oct. 27, KGLW), previewing the synth-driven set with the lead single and video triumvirate of its album openers, “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set.”

King Gizzard are known for album-length explorations of the numerous wrinkles in their collective creative brain—just take 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana and 2020’s K.G., a combined hour and a half of experimentation with whatever microtonal tunings are. The Silver Cord finds them taking on a crucible that has laid waste to lesser bands: “This is the album where perhaps the most thrilling rock group on the planet turn their hand to Electronic Music,” a press release declares. That’s not the only new frontier King Gizzard are forging here, either: The Silver Cord will be available in two versions, with original and extended mixes that offer listeners two radically divergent iterations of the record, a first for the band.

As on its “sister album,” this summer’s thrash-metal raveup PetroDragonic Apocalypse, The Silver Cord was born out of improvisation, with King Gizzard using the spur of the moment as a springboard to launch themselves into electronic music-making. “We come at electronic music from an amateur angle,” vocalist and guitarist Stu Mackenzie said in press notes. “I play the Juno synthesizer like a guitar, I don’t really know how to play it. But I wanted to be at peace with being the rock band pretending to know how to use modular synthesizers. We’re in uncharted waters, we’re further out to sea, but leaning into it, and we got to a spot where we were really happy with what came out.”

Judging by “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set,” what came out is big, bold and unabashed electronic pop music, with some of the most immediate hooks of King Gizzard’s singular career, drenched in their signature surreality. For now, we’re only privy to the original mixes of the three tracks, but it’s easy to see the particularly adventurous stretches their extended siblings may expand upon, from the pulsing peaks of “Theia” and the droning intro of the title track to the stomping club beats and raucous rapped bridge (!) of “Set.” You’ll want to buckle up for this one, folks.

King Gizzard—arguably as well-known for their live shows as their kaleidoscopic sound and perpetual output—have a handful of E.U. and U.S. shows on the docket in 2024, one of which is already sold out. You’ll find their tour dates below, along with the details of The Silver Cord, available for preorder here.

The Silver Cord Tracklist:

1 LP VERSION

1. Theia

2. The Silver Cord

3. Set

4. Chang’e

5. Gilgamesh

6. Swan Song

7. Extinction

2 LP VERSION

1. Theia – Extended Mix

2. The Silver Cord – Extended Mix

3. Set – Extended Mix

4. Chang’e – Extended Mix

5. Gilgamesh – Extended Mix

6. Swan Song – Extended Mix

7. Extinction – Extended Mix

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Tour Dates:

Wed. May 22, 2024 – Hamburg, Germany @ Stadtpark Open Air – MARATHON SHOW

Sat. May 25, 2024 – London, UK @ Wide Awake Festival – HEADLINE SET

Fri. Aug. 16, 2024 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium – MARATHON SHOW

Sat. Aug. 17, 2024 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium – MARATHON SHOW

Sun. Sept. 1, 2024 – Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island –  MARATHON SHOW, SOLD OUT

Sat. Sept. 14, 2024 – Quincy, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre – MARATHON SHOW

Fri. Nov. 15, 2024 – Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater – MARATHON SHOW

More New Music

You can hear new tracks from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and music from local, regional, national and international artists on our music discovery station The Independent 89.9 HD4. And you can follow our Fresh Squeeze playlist on Spotify to stream all the best new music, updated every month.