The Murlocs
Love, Death and Trucker Speed: The Murlocs Get Adventurous on Rapscallion
When your primary band has released 20 studio albums in 12 years (with three more to come in the next six weeks), it seems a bit preposterous to also have a side project with five albums and two EPs of its own. Such is the state of affairs for ever-prolific King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard multi-instrumentalists Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Cook Craig, whose sixth album with the Murlocs, Rapscallion, arrives Sept. 16 on ATO Records. For those of us who can barely remain functioning members of the human race on a daily basis, this level of output is, well, staggering. For Kenny-Smith and Craig, it’s basically just business as usual. “I feel like they’re way different bands inherently, because they’re set up differently,” Craig says when asked how he keeps all this music straight in his own hea...
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard Set October Release for Three New LPs
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are making good on their pledge to release five albums in 2022 and have revealed specifics about the final three of the bunch, details of which were first reported here in July. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava arrives first on Oct. 7, followed by Laminated Denim on Oct. 12 and Changes on Oct. 28, all on the Australian band’s KGLW label and arriving amid its biggest U.S. headlining shows to date. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava was built from all six members jamming for hours over a seven-day period, a process similar to the one that birthed the 18-minute “The Dripping Tap” from the latest Gizzard release, Omnium Gatherum. Frontman Stu MacKenzie presented seven song titles and seven different major-scale musical modes to his b...
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard Invites Fans to Bootleg New Demos
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard has already released two albums in 2022 and has three more on the way before the end of the year, but the ever-prolific Australian group has gifted fans with two additional surprise treats today (July 15). The third and fourth volumes of Gizzard’s Bandcamp-only Demos series round up 26 previously unreleased cuts spanning 2011-2021, and the band is once again inviting fans to bootleg them in any way they choose. “A refresher to anyone who’s forgotten or is new here: ‘bootleg’ in Gizzard-speak means anyone is allowed to make copies of this album,” frontman Stu Mackenzie wrote on Instagram. “If you’re a label you can release it like any other release. If you’re not a label you can go create a label right now and sell this album to whoever you want. Or if you...
The Murlocs Blast Back With New Album, Fall North American Tour
The Murlocs conjure a beguiling cast of misfits, skate punks and petty criminals on their sixth album, Rapscallion, inspired in part by frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s real-life upbringing in the southeast Australian port city Geelong. Rapscallion is due Sept. 16 from ATO Records and is led by the single “Virgin Criminal.” “It’s about him doing his first crime, ripping off a convenience store and getting off on the thrill of being an outlaw,” says Kenny-Smith of the song and the nameless main character whose adventures are woven through Rapscallion. [embedded content][embedded content] The 12-track album is the follow-up to 2021’s Bittersweet Demons and was recorded in band members’ individual home studios during the first era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenny-Smith and bassist Cook Craig are...
