Not even three months out from the release of the maximalist techno opus Alien Metal, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard will drop a companion album in a similar musical style, Entropy, on Dec. 4 through its own (p)doom records label. The first single is the vocal effects-drenched “Rogue Wave,” perhaps the most danceable and seemingly posi-vibes song ever written about a tsunami, and a nice nod back to the sound of Gizzard’s first electronic project, 2021’s Butterfly 3000.
Alien Metal was the band’s 28th album and grew out of an hour-long improvisation on its sprawling Eurorack modular synthesizer rig, nicknamed Nathan. That record’s eight tracks all occupied the same key (F-sharp) and tempo (143 beats per minute), yielding a dark, propulsive collection that drew on techno, jungle, house and IDM. Entropy emerged from the same extended recording sessions, but took a different path.
“Of all the recordings we did with the Eurorack, there were always these two jams that felt really good [and] really different,” group member Stu Mackenzie explains. The band initially intended to finish and release both albums together, but Alien Metal demanded more attention. In the process, “Entropy began to feel like its own project, something that could stand on its own and needed a little longer to simmer. We were like, let’s commit. Let’s dig deeper, mine this sound further, and challenge ourselves a bit more. Entropy’s definitely coming from its own place.”
The distinction is built into the music’s basic architecture. “Entropy’s tracks are at 160bpm and in the key of A,” Mackenzie says. “Entropy’s a lot faster, and has a different energy, and we leaned into a lot of different rhythmic things on this one. And where Alien Metal had a grungy dirtiness about it, Entropy is prettier, more harmonic, more cosmic.”
For Mackenzie, the appeal of Nathan is less about the gear itself than the creative disruption it has offered Gizzard’s members over the past three years. “It’s not an instrument with a keyboard in an old-fashioned sense, but a giant machine of crazy cables and electronic voltage, and this rewires your brain in terms of songwriting structure and sonics,” he says. “We’ve always tried really hard to write songs in different ways. Eurorack has us working completely differently, challenging ourselves and being experimental in the writing process, but still landing somewhere that makes sense. Just trying to make music in ways we’ve never tried before is the excitement for us.”
Alongside the album, King Gizzard have announced two North American tour legs for 2027, with August dates on the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest and October shows across the South, Midwest and Northeast. The August run includes two nights at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever Cemetery and a date at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington; the October leg includes a return visit to the Caverns in rural Tennessee, which the band visited in summer 2023, and Chicago’s 10,000-capacity Wintrust Arena. Tickets go on sale Friday (Nov. 13).
Here is the track list for Entropy:
Aeon
Heaven & Hell
Hard Sync
Rogue Wave
Angel
To Mercury…
Face of the Earth
Entropy
Here are King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s tour dates:
Aug. 5-6: Los Angeles, CA, Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Aug. 7: San Diego, CA, The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
Aug. 8: Flagstaff, AZ, Pepsi Amphitheater
Aug. 10: Santa Fe, NM, Hipico
Aug. 18: San Francisco, CA, Cow Palace
Aug. 19: Portland, OR, Venue TBA
Aug. 21: Quincy, WA, Gorge Amphitheatre
Aug. 22: Vancouver, BC, Freedom Mobile Arch
Aug. 24: Calgary, AB, Big Four Roadhouse
Aug. 25: Saskatoon, SK, TCU Place
Aug. 26: Winnipeg, MB, Burton Cummings Theatre
Aug. 27: Minneapolis, MN, The Armory
Oct. 6: Dallas, TX, Longhorn Backyard Amphitheater
Oct. 7: Austin, TX, Germania Insurance Amphitheater
Oct. 8: New Orleans, LA, Saenger Theatre
Oct. 9: Atlanta, GA, Fox Theatre
Oct. 11: Grundy County, TN, The Caverns (Above Ground Amphitheater)
Oct. 12: Asheville, NC, Hellbender
Oct. 19: Montreal, QC, MTELUS
Oct. 20: Toronto, ON, The Theatre at Great Canadian Toronto
Oct. 21: Cleveland, OH, Jacobs Pavilion
Oct. 22: Chicago, IL, Wintrust Arena
