Genres: Electronic Dance Music, Acid Techno, Acid House, Progressive House
The Musiquarium’s Alien Metal Review Score: 7 out of 10
Three years after immersing themselves in electronic music with The Silver Cord, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has returned to the realm of electronic music, going even further down the rabbit hole, with a techno and house inspired album.
As Sapience starts the album, you’ll immediately hear the difference between Alien Metal and The Silver Cord — where that earlier album still very much resembled a traditional King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard album (at least vocally-speaking), Alien Metal foregoes all and any conventional vocals in complete favour of vocoders (i.e. you never know which member is “singing”), though the lyrics are still typically weird and on brand, rather than your stock dance music lyricism.
Level Five is full of breakbeats, with the entire song showing that the band has a strong understanding of what they’re doing. Uqt is the only song with anything close to resembling guitars. As Atomic Collapse ends the album, it wraps back around to the first track, just like Nonagon Infinity did ten years ago.
As always, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard loses themselves in the concept of the album, with the production being some of their best yet, and the band’s grasp on electronic music has definitely improved since The Silver Cord (though it’s not necessarily a better record). For all it does right though, Alien Metal is still likely to alienate much of the KGATLW fanbase (no pun intended).
For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard on Discogs.
Back to the master 2026 Album Reviews Guide or the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Album Reviews page.
Written by Brett Nippard
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