Weird and wonderful Melbourne seven-piece, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have announced details of their forthcoming new album, ‘Infest The Rats Nest’, set for release on 16th August.

Fans may be excited to hear that it’s said to be their ‘hardest and heaviest’ album to date, with ten tracks to sink your teeth into the album drawing influences by thrash metal seeing them go in an unexpected sonic direction.

Just six months after the announcement of former album ‘Fishing For Fishies’, explaining the new direction, it seems Stu has always had a soft spot for Thrash Metal: “In year 4 there was an older kid who was into Rammstein, I made friends with him and we put together a performance at our school assembly where we headbanged to ‘Du Hast’. I got whiplash, which I thought was pretty cool. That was my introduction to heavy metal, and soon Rammstein led to Metallica, Metallica led to Slayer, Slayer led to Kreator and Sodom. The German bands really kicked my ass and scared the hell out of me too. Later on, when I picked up a guitar I realised that shit was too hard to play, so I got into rock ‘n’ roll and garage. That was liberating.”

With many of the members busy with various other things in life such as fatherhood, other band commitments, they were down to a three-piece for the making of this album, with Stu and Joey sharing the guitar and bass parts and Michael recording all of the drums.

The band have also recently announced a string of tour dates across Europe and the UK for later this year.

Full list of UK dates below:

SEPTEMBER
30 Nottingham, Rock City

OCTOBER
1 Glasgow, Barrowlands
2 Leeds, The Academy
3 Manchester, Victoria Warehouse
5 London, Alexandra Palace