King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Infest the Rats Nest (Galaxy Effect Vinyl LP)

Their fifteenth studio album, Infest The Rats’ Nest is by far The Gizz’s hardest and heaviest album to date. How metal is it? Very metal. Maybe even more. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard aren’t mere dabbling dilletantes either.

Infest The Rats’ Nest is the sound of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard scratching the thrash metal itch, fully and unequivocally. Ferocious and direct, “Organ Farmer” is built on drums that gallop away like a battalion of wild horses over the horizon and a triple guitar attack set to stun. It’s the type of sub-three minute song you wish Hetfield and Co. still made. “Venusian 1” goes at it even harder, a shredding collection featuring an army of guitars. A guitarmy, if you will. This is an album dripping with disdain and disgust for a planet consuming itself in a mass act of cannibalism. “Superbug” sings of the type of lurgy that will one day destroy us all, while the utterly nihilistic “Self-Immolate” sees riff piled upon riff and Stu Mackenzie delivering a vocal display to stand alongside the likes of Tom Araya or Max Cavalera. “I’m a pretty shit singer but I do think of my voice as an instrument,” laughs the frontman. “You’ve got lots of tones and different sounds in there you can experiment with.”