King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard famously released five distinct new studio albums in 2022, but it hasn’t taken long for the Australian sextet to unveil yet more fresh jams. To wit: the group debuted a thrash-y, metal-leaning new song, “Gila Monster,” tonight (March 4) as the penultimate number during its show in the Dutch city of Tilburg.
Somewhat in the vein of previous hard rocking Gizzard tracks such as “Perihelion,” “Gila Monster” finds frontman Stu Mackenzie singing about the venomous lizard’s knack for delivering “puncture wounds,” while multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith chips in with a growling verse of his own. The song’s chorus is little more than a repeating chant of “gila! gila!,” to which fans were already bobbing up and down on first listen tonight in Tilburg.
Since returning to Australia last November after an extensive 2022 world tour, Gizzard has been hard at work on at least two new albums, which bassist Lucas Harwood told SPIN are “both very collaborative in different ways. They’re going to be very different sounding to each other, but we’re going to try to make them complement each other in a yin and yang kind of way. We’re all writing lyrics for both albums again, which has been fun.” It is unknown if “Gila Monster” is intended for release on either project or when they may see the light of day.
Gizzard is on tour in Europe through March 23 in London. Afterwards, the group will embark a June run of U.S. residency dates in four cities, which also includes its biggest stateside show ever at the 17,000-capacity Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on June 21. Last week, three shows planned for new venue Carnation Farms outside of Seattle were moved for logistical reasons to the nearby Remlinger Farms, which doubles as an amusement park.
In related news, Harwood has just dropped “Morning Milk,” the first song from his new side project, Heavy Moss, while group member Joey Walker’s Bullant released two highly entertaining, rave-ready dance tracks, “Rove” and “Trade,” on Feb. 17.
