I’m late to Elephant Stone‘s last album, Back into the Dream, but they’re certainly not late to their always sharp psychedelic grooves and uplifting lyrics on it.
Robbie MacArthur‘s guitar work on opening track “Lost in a Dream” is outstanding, reaching shining heights above sparkling clouds at some points as even shinier synths bounce like sunlight off a warm lake. “The Spark” features more great guitar work, and “Going Underground” has hints of the band’s love of The Rolling Stones (check out that drum beat by Miles Dupire-Gagnon), with Jason Kent‘s Hammond organ taking a full step forward on the track.
“History Repeating” is almost a shoegaze track with those background guitars and Rishi Dhir‘s smooth bass line throughout it, and “bae” is a shoegaze track with its distorted vocals and enough layers of reverb to make a birthday cake for Roky Erickson. If that track doesn’t take you out of your body, then “Godstar” will as Dhir’s sitar and Shawn Mativetsky‘s tabla pretty much levitate your speakers off the floor, desk, or car doors.
“The Imajinary, Nameless Everybody in the World” is the kind of song that only Elephant Stone can seem to pull off – psychedelic, spiritual, lovely, rocking, and multi-layered without coming off as noodling or tying to force some kind of sound or reaction. It starts off almost meditative and then floats into cosmic jam territory. It’s the rightful centerpiece of the album and is over seven minutes of psych-bliss (and check out that Adam Kinner sax solo!).
“Pilgrimage” is another lovely one, with the band’s synths, piano, and saxophone putting down perfect sounds for a late night trip that’s taking you to a sunrise you’ve wanted to see for quite some time. “On Our Own” has the band embracing their admitted love of The Beatles, and album closes with the soft, short, subtle “Another Year Gone” as Dhir reminisces about past prophets, past choices, past loves, and future joys and mysteries to come.
Elephant Stone have another gem in their catalog with Back into the Dream. It’s both another fun record for us long-time fans and a good entry point if you’re new to them. Sit back and enjoy it.
Today Labrador Records introduce Stockholm-based four-piece Dag och Natt,who are set to release their debut album ‘Years And Years’ on August 15th. With today’s announcement they have shared the lusciously dazed new single, “Iron Man“.
Speaking on the track, the band said “‘Iron Man’ could be about staying the course, step by step, keeping a steady pace. A quiet strength that moves you forward. Sometimes, just going with a vague purpose is enough. There is a calm power in simply carrying on.”
Dag och Natt is a band from Stockholm, Sweden, whose music strikes a delicate balance between dense and airy. Their melodies are intricately layered, often weaving together with a sense of fluidity, with vocals split between Elia Mårtensson Almegård, Sara Engström and Maja Zetterberg.
The name Dag och Natt, which translates to Day and Night, was chosen with intention, reflecting the band’s desire to explore both the light and dark aspects of life through their music.
Initially, the band entertained the idea of forming two separate projects – one light and one dark – with the same members. However, they soon abandoned this concept in favour of bringing everything together under the name Dag och Natt. The result is an album that embodies both joy and struggle, brightness and shadows, mirroring the interplay between day and night.
The band’s creative process is both collaborative and intuitive. Writing sessions often take place in a secluded cabin in the woods, where the focus is solely on the music. There is no predetermined structure or rhythm – instead, Sara often begins with a bassline, and Maja and Elia contribute their guitar parts, before Lars Blume Jensen adds percussion. This natural and organic approach allows the music to develop in an effortless and fluid way, rooted in trust and mutual respect among the members.
Lyrically, the band explores themes of duality – the contrasts between love and loneliness, strength and vulnerability, connection and isolation. Their debut album reflects these themes, presenting a sonic landscape where light and darkness coexist. Rather than offering answers, Dag och Natt seeks to create space for listeners to reflect on their own experiences, embracing both the challenges and the beauty of life.
Slow Crush have announced their new album, Thirst, on which the dynamic four piece further cement themselves at the forefront of rock and shoegaze. On Thirst, Slow Crush’s dynamic textures, propulsive rhythms and gauzy riffs glow bright as ever, but this time with more grit. Today they’ve shared the album’s leading single and title track which emerges as the defining anthem. The band tell, “‘Thirst’ is about an unquenchable desire for what’s next, with focus on essence and balance. Not losing yourself in the ever-growing distractions that surround us. A yearning pulse for renewal, ‘Thirst’ ripples with a craving for something pure, something vital. It churns with an unrelenting drive, building an electrifying momentum that surges forward and breaks through, offering both release and rebirth.”
The past few years off the road have given Slow Crush space to breathe and create since the release of their two critically acclaimed albums, Aurora (2018) and Hush (2021), which have sold over several tens of thousands physical copies. When the time came to head into the studio, vocalist / bassist Isa Holliday, drummer Frederik Meeuwis, guitarists Jelle Ronsmans and Nic Placlé decamped to The Ranch in Southampton, U.K., to work with producer Lewis Johns with no expectations in mind, aside from a metamorphosis.
Thirst’s ten tracks are a thematic cascade of noise that echoes the end and bursts into new life. The riffs are heavier, the vocals are dreamier and more emotional than ever. Isa broke new ground in her vulnerability when while in the recording booth. There were several songs she couldn’t record without dissolving into tears – her deepest excavation of feelings yet.
Thirst’s overarching theme is what Isa describes as “the romance of being with a loved one”. Although being away from someone close for long periods might strain that bond at times, the return can feel glorious, the connection sparkling new again for a while. Slow Crush set out to capture the feeling of being tethered yet feeling weightless, absorbed in the surreal beauty of the quiet moments with someone.
Isa explains, “We want people to let themselves go and feel embraced by the music, so that they can experience it in 4D. That’s what we hear a lot from people who come to see us live, or people who’ve listened to our previous albums, is that we take them to another dimension. I think that’s something that we miss in this day and age with everything that’s going on in the world, making us very aware of everything outside, but not allowing us to just be in the moment as much as you should. We want to let people take a moment for themselves and let the music take them wherever they would like to go.”
Thirst sees its release August 29 via Pure Noise Records, their first for the label. Slow Crush are set for a headlining Fall run which kicks off on the East Coast in early September and covers both coasts, the midwest and more. Tickets are on sale now. See below for a full list of dates and artwork.
Slow Crush Live Dates: May 23: Sniester Festival – Den Haag, NL May 24: Eastfilly fest – Ostfildern, DE May 30: Dunk fest – Gent, BE Jun 21: Blender fest – Kortrijk, BE Jun 27: Resurrection fest – Viveiro, ES Jul 05: Breakout festival – Berlin, DE Aug 07: Brutal Assault – Okruzni, CZ Aug 08: Void fest – Waldmunchen, DE
Sep 04: Allentown, PA – Arrow Sep 05: Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry Sep 06: Boston, MA – The Sinclair Sep 07: Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg Sep 09: Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz Sep 10: Toronto, ON – Velvet Underground Sep 11: Detroit, MI – El Club Sep 12: Chicago, IL – Reggie’s Sep 13: Indianapolis, IN – HiFi Sep 14: St. Louis, MO – Duck Room Sep 16: Fort Worth, TX – Tulips Sep 17: Austin, TX – Radio/East Sep 19: Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom Sep 20: Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom Sep 21: Oakland, CA – Crybaby Sep 23: Seattle, WA – El Corazon Sep 24: Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre Sep 26: Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge Sep 27: Denver, CO – Marquis Theatre Sep 29: Kansas City, MO – RecordBar Oct 01: Nashville, TN – The ’58 Oct 02: Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade Oct 03: Durham, NC – The Fruit Oct 04: Richmond, VA – The Broadberry Oct 05: Washington, DC – Union Stage
What do you do if you’re in a legendary doom metal band, but all of your members (especially your guitarist) are doing cocaine and / or chugging booze almost nonstop, are exhausted from a massive tour, and are also running out of ideas for your fifth album?
If you’re Black Sabbath, your go back to Gloucestershire, England and record Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in a haunted castle.
Tommy Iommi‘s opening riff on the title track is the sound of ancient monsters awakening from a long slumber, and the song drifts into psychedelia at the right points to keep the shredding from overwhelming you. “A National Acrobat” is a song about DNA, believe it or not, and what determines who we become. Bill Ward keeps his drums simple, almost jazzy at some points, to good effect.
The lovely “Fluff” is pretty much a lullaby, which you’d never expect from that album cover…but you might from the back cover.
“Sabbra Cadabra” shreds on every level. Geezer Butler‘s bass roars and struts, while Ozzy Osbourne goes for broke with his vocals, having a great time behind the microphone. As if that’s not enough, along come Yes‘ Rick Wakeman to play a Minimoog on the track (and he was paid in beer!).
“Killing Yourself to Live” has soaring guitar work from Iommi. He creates a sound both majestic and heavy. The synths on “Who Are You?” ooze with creepy menace as Osbourne calls out cults of personality and the people who lead them. The groove of “Looking for Today” is top-notch. The album ends with “Spiral Architect,” a song about death (go figure) that includes lush string instruments and bright synths (and applause) to send us out on an uplifting note.
Like the other first six Black Sabbath albums (the only ones you can trust, according to a T-shirt I saw worn by Nick Aguilar of Frankie and The Witch Fingers), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was sometimes derided upon its release but it now considered a metal classic. It’s impressive that it was completed and turned out so well, considering all the band was dealing with in 1973.
For the past decade, the New Orleans band Lawn has thrived on the palpable chemistry between co-lead singers and songwriters Mac Folger and Rui De Magalhaes. Though each boasts distinct sensibilities—Folger’s songs are breezy, jangly, and personal while De Magalhaes’ are biting and propulsive post-punk—they’ve seamlessly blended their idiosyncratic styles over three unassailable indie rock full-lengths, while becoming a fixture in a thriving New Orleans scene, and sharing stages with artists like Momma, Hovvdy and Omni.
De Magalhaes had moved to Chicago following the release of the 2022 Bigger Sprout, and released an acclaimed solo LP under the name Rui Gabriel via Carpark Records, which earned praise from folks like Pitchfork, Stereogum and Paste, but Lawn, despite recently uniting in New Orleans, have been quiet.
Today, following the announce of a recent run of tour dates with Momma, the band are announcing their return, signing to Exploding In Sound and sharing their first new music since their 2022 LP, a single called “Sports Gun.”
Engineered by Greg Obis (of Stuck) at Chicago’s Palisades Studio and mixed by Dave Vettraino (Dehd, Deeper), “Sports Gun” simmers with intensity thanks to its pummeling bass riff, layers of feedback-laden guitars. It’s galvanizing, loud, and unrelenting.
De Magalhaes says of the track:
“Sports Gun is supposed to be written from the point of view of a coach/parental figure who
pushes the subject to their absolute limit without regard for them otherwise. It came from a shortstory I wrote pre-pandemic. The idea was that any trauma – long or short term notwithstanding -would only be implied, if that, and that we only get to experience the narrative through a very thin, biased lens. It’s a frail attempt at writing something inspired by Julio Cortazar, but I still thought it fit the drive of the song. It is supposed to be more about the lengths some people go to accomplish something, conflating happiness with ambition, and overall being inept at being content.
I knew that we were going to an actual studio this time around, so we built the song around the idea that it would sound “heavier” for us. We had wanted to record with Greg [Obis] and really loved the sound he was getting from his own music, so we were open to the notion of layering as much noise as we could. The original demo had a slightly different beat and I sort of rapped the lyrics. Once we got into the studio and everyone started adding their own take, I just went for the yell instead.”
It’s odd that I haven’t seen a full concert in almost five months, so opening my 2025 concert season with one of my rock heroes seemed appropriate. The Bob Mould Band was playing an easy drive from my house, so seeing them for the third time, and in a small venue, was an easy decision.
First up were Winged Wheel, who described themselves as being “from multiple cities” and thus rarely getting opportunities to play and tour together. They played an interesting brand of psychedelia that mixed synthwave with trippy guitars, a violin, and even lap steel guitar.
Winged Wheel
They had a great sunset to provide a light show, and I thought, “They could play Levitation.” Their sound is unique and they all look like someone you know.
After about a twenty-minute gear switch, The Bob Mould band came out and got straight to business. It was the last show of their current tour, and they emptied the gas tank on the Bell’s outdoor stage.
They tore through the first group of tracks so fast that you could barely breathe. The crowd, mostly aging hipsters like yours truly, seemed a bit low key. The trio of Mr. Mould, Jason Narducy (bass), and Jon Wurster (drums) were roaring and few people were dancing at first. I think some were just overwhelmed by the tidal wave of sound coming at them. There were a couple songs when it felt like a mosh pit could, and should, have broken out. Three guys tried to start one for a moment, but one of the trio soon stopped it and calmed his pals down before it could form.
The Bob Mould Band was undeterred by this, thank heavens, and ripped through a lot of good stuff from their catalogue, both new (from their Here We Go Crazy album) and even a short set of tracks from 2020. Wurster was dropping some killer fills the whole night, and Narducy’s bass grooves were locked in the whole set.
Mould, go figure, shredded the entire evening with both his guitar and his voice. It’s wild to see and hear him create that much sound.
A highlight for me was them playing the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show near the end of the night. If you’re a fan of Hüsker Dü, then you know that cover was a staple of their early shows so it was a blast to hear that gem brought out to shine.
It’s great that these guys are still crushing it and that Mould is still putting out great music and showing youngsters how it’s done.
Keep your mind open.
Thanks to the chap who let me snap a photo of this set list he scored.
[Thanks to Jim and Mia at Big Hassle for the press pass!]
The Beths — the New Zealand-based quartet of vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck — announce signing to ANTI- and release the new single/video, “Metal.” “Metal” is the first taste of new music from the band since the release of 2023’s Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe), the expanded version of their beloved 2022 album.
Following Liz Stokes’s recent, sold–out solo show at Largo in Los Angeles with special guests Courtney Barnett and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords), The Beths announce a world tour across North America, the UK and Europe this fall. The band returns to the U.S. for the first time since playing Coachella, Bonnaroo and Newport Folk Festival, and supporting The National, Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service in 2023-2024. They’ll headline some of their biggest venues to date including The Wiltern in Los Angeles, The Fillmore in San Francisco, The Salt Shed in Chicago, Brooklyn Paramount in New York City, Union Transfer in Philadelphia, 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and more. Tickets go on sale Fri. May 2 at 10am local and are available here.
Today’s single “Metal” was born out of a time of rigorous touring, mental health struggles, and several diagnoses for Stokes. “In some ways ‘Metal’ is a song about being alive and existing in a human body,” she explains. “That is something I have been acutely aware of in the last few years, where I have been on what one might call a ‘health journey’. For parts of the last few years, I kind of felt like my body was a vehicle that had carried me pretty well thus far but was breaking down, something I had little to no control over. All of the steps in the Rube Goldberg machine of life are so unlikely, and yet here we are in it. I have a hunger and a curiosity for learning about the world around me, and for learning about myself. And despite all the ways that my body feels like a broken machine, I still marvel at the complexity of such a machine.”
“I can hold that knowledge in one hand, and yet with the other hand I can point to my reflection and just be like ‘you are shit’. Or ‘ugly’. Or ‘worthless’. I can reliably respond to any suggestion that I might be able to achieve any small thing with ‘no’. And these are variations of the ‘short word’ referenced in the song.”
Sonically, the track sees The Beths fully embracing jangle rock. Stokes says, “There was a propulsion to the acoustic strumming pattern on the original demo. Tristan’s drums meet that feeling so perfectly, the feeling of a train pushing up the tracks. Jonathan got to play his Burns 12 string guitar as sparkly as he wanted, and Ben as usual can’t be contained to the lower register. I think we ended up with an arrangement that embodies the frenetic intricacy of an engine in action. There’s a lot going on, until there isn’t.”
2023’s Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe) expanded upon the brilliance of The Beths’ acclaimed 2022 album, “another collection of tunes that cements their status as one of the great guitar-pop bands of this present moment” (Stereogum). The third studio album from The Beths, Expert In A Dying Field was released to a wealth of critical praise, and was named one of 2022’s best releases by the likes of Pitchfork, The Ringer, Stereogum and more. Surrounding its release, The Beths were profiled by Rolling Stone, made their U.S. television debut on CBS Saturday Morning, and performed a NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, The Beths are undeniably one of the most exciting indie rock bands to emerge in recent memory.
The Beths Tour Dates: Thu. Sept. 18 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory Sat. Sept. 20 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall Sun. Sept. 21 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 TV Studio Mon. Sept. 22 – Leeds, UK @ Project House Wed. Sept. 24 – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy Thu. Sept. 25 – Birmingham, UK @ XOYO Fri. Sept. 26 – London, UK @ Roundhouse Sat. Sept. 27 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK Mon. Sept. 29 – Tourcoing, FR @ Le Grand Mix Tue. Sept. 30 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo Wed. Oct. 1 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique Fri. Oct. 3 – Cologne, DE @ Kantine Sat. Oct. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Sun. Oct. 5 – Hamburg, DE @ Krust Tue. Oct. 7 – Stockholm, SE @ Slaktkyrkan Wed. Oct. 8 Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene Thu. Oct. 9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset Sat. Oct. 11 – Berlin, DE @ Lido Sun. Oct. 12 – Munich, DE @ Strom Mon. Oct. 13 – Zurich, CH @ Plaza Wed. Oct. 15 – Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 2 Thu. Oct. 16 – Madrid, ES @ Nazca Fri. Oct. 17 – Lisbon, PT @ LAV Thu. Oct. 30 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel* Fri. Oct. 31 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse * Sat. Nov 1 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl * Mon. Nov. 3 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio At The Bomb Factory * Tue. Nov. 4 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s * Thu. Nov. 6 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren * Fri. Nov. 7 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern * ^ Sat. Nov. 8 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore * Wed. Nov. 12 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades * Fri. Nov. 14 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom * Sat. Nov. 15 – Seattle, WA @ The Moore Theatre * Sun. Nov. 16 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom * Tue. Nov. 18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall * Wed. Nov. 19 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre * Fri. Nov. 21 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman * Sat. Nov. 22 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre * Sun. Nov. 23 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed (Indoor) * + Tue. Nov 25 – Cleveland, OH @ Globe Iron * Wed. Nov. 26 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre * Fri. Nov. 28 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall * Sat. Nov. 29 – Montreal, QC @ Beanfield Theatre * Tue. Dec. 2 – Boston, MA @ Royale * Wed. Dec. 3 – Providence, RI @ Fete Music Hall * Fri. Dec. 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * # Sat. Dec. 6 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer * Tue. Dec. 9 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club *
I can’t understate how much Black Sabbath‘s self-titled debut from 1970 changed the game. Many words have been written on this fact, so I’m not adding anything new by declaring that no one had heard anything like this before 1970. Sure, there had been heavy psychedelic rock, and some of it downright spooky (Looking at you, 13th Floor Elevators.), but this was spooky and heavy.
The opening title track alone has Ozzy Osbourne singing about some sort of dark…thing, Satan himself, arises out of smoke to point a black finger at him and possibly doom him for all time. Osbourne pleads to God, and us, for help while Tommy Iommi‘s guitar sounds like weird chants, Bill Ward‘s drums are like rolling thunder that rumbles at distance and then overwhelms you moments later, and Geezer Butler‘s bass is like cloven footsteps approaching you from the dark.
Just when you think there’s no light in this pit, along comes “The Wizard,” a song about Gandalf and loaded with enough blues harmonica from Osbourne to power a Howlin’ Wolf track. It’s one of their best early cuts, and just a lot of damn fun. Finishing up Side A is the four-song medley of “Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Bassically,” and “N.I.B.” Clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, the four tracks have a great swagger to them that keeps you hooked the entire time, even as Osbourne sings about your body turning into a corpse. Don’t worry, though, because the morning sun will break the spell and awaken you from this horrible dreams. Geezer’s solo on “Bassically” leads into the thudding “N.I.B.” (named after Geezer’s “pen nib” goatee) and Osbourne singing a warning about how deceptive the devil can be.
“Wicked World” starts Side B with wicked, almost jazz-chop drums from Ward, who was clearly having a blast in the recording studio that day. Osbourne sings about social injustice with lyrics that, unfortunately, are still relevant (“People got to work just to earn their bread while people just across the sea are counting the dead.”). The second side ends with another medley, this one of “A Bit of Finger” / “Sleeping Village” / and “Warning” that almost four minutes than the medley on Side A. Most of it is a creeping, menacing instrumental (“Sleeping Village”), while the end is a song about staying away from a potentially dangerous (and mystical?) woman.
It’s a classic album, and an important one not just in the history of metal, but of music in general. It flattened people back in 1970 and still hits as hard as a battle axe.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce their 27th album Phantom Island, out June 13th, and share its lead single “Deadstick.” If you’re worried that, 15 years and 26 albums into their epic quest, polymorphous psychedelic voyagers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard might be running out of new frontiers to traverse, then let their latest opus set your mind to rest. The band’s second release on their own (p)doom records label, Phantom Island sees our intrepid heroes add a new dimension to their ever-evolving songcraft, embracing the symphonic and embroidering their tangles of lysergic riff and melody with strings and horns and woodwind.
The roots of the album can be traced back to the group’s legendary show at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2023. Gizz met some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic backstage who urged them to take part in an annual series where the orchestra plays alongside rock and pop acts. Fast-forward to 2024, and the Gizz are hunkered down in their clubhouse, plugged into tiny practice amps and choogling to their hearts’ content. The results of these sessions yield that year’s Aria-nominated Flight b741. But these sessions yielded ten further songs that didn’t quite fit the Flight b741 vibe, and which, Mackenzie says, “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
Quickly, the group’s collective mind leapt to the LA Philharmonic. “The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie says. He reached out to friend, British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds – he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me. Lead single “Deadstick” puts Kelly’s elaborate orchestrations on display, raising the graceful and complex song to the sublime, transforming it into a giddy jazz-rock riot.
On the song’s accompanying video, directorGuy Tyzack says: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about. Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
If Flight b741 was an album of rambunctious adventure stories, Phantom Island picks up that thread, spinning its tales of quests and piracy out into the stars. But it’s a more interior album than its predecessor, more melancholy – more “introverted”, Mackenzie says. Sure, these are tales of high adventure in galaxies far, far away, but the focus is less on the action, and more on the interior lives of those adventurers, reflecting the kind of insight Gizz have gleaned from 15 years of travelling the world and leaving their homes behind to take their music to the people. There’s a wiser, more mature, more sensitive Gizz at play here, questioning their place within the universe, their responsibilities, the ties that bind. “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out,” admits Mackenzie, “but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
King Gizzard will embark on their 2025 Phantom Island orchestral tour this July. Featuring a different accompanying 29-piece orchestra in each city – and ably led by conductor & music director Sarah Hicks – the tour will see the group perform with some of the country’s most renowned ensembles, before concluding with Field of Vision, the band’s own 3-day residency camping event at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, CO. This represents the band’s only U.S. tour of 2025, so don’t miss out on your fix for a full calendar year. A full list of dates are below with tickets available here.
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES (New dates in bold) Sun. May 18 – Tue. May 20 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu dos Recreios * Fri. May 23 – Sun. May 25 – Barcelona, ES @ Poble Espanyol * Thu. May 29 – Sat. May 31 – Vilnius, LT @ Lukiškės Prison 2.0 ^ Wed. June 4 – Fri. June 6 – Athens, GR @ Lycabettus Theatre City of Athens # Sun. June 8 – Tue. June 10 – Plovdiv, BG @ Ancient Theatre ^
Fri. June 13 – Sun. June 15 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Mon. July 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion At The Mann (w/ Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) $ Wed. July 30 – New Haven, CT @ Westville Music Bowl (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Fri. August 1 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Sat. August 2 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (Rock ‘n Roll Show) $ Mon. August 4 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion (w/ National Symphony Orchestra) $ Wed. August 6 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival (w/ Chicago Philharmonic) $ Fri. August 8 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Ford Amphitheater (w/ Colorado Symphony) $ Sun. August 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl (w/ Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) $ Mon. August 11 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (w/ San Diego Symphony Orchestra) $
Fri. August 15 – Sun. August 17 – Buena Vista, CO @ FIELD OF VISION at Meadow Creek %
Fri. October 31 – Manchester, UK @ Aviva Studios (Rave Set) Sat. November 1 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Sun. November 2 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Tue. November 4 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall (w/ Covent Garden Sinfonia) Wed. November 5 – Paris, FR @ La Seine Musicale (w/ L’Orchestre Lamoureux) Thu. November 6 – Tilburg, NL @ 013 (Rave Set) Fri. November 7 – Den Bosch, NL @ MAINSTAGE ( w/ Sinfonia Rotterdam) Sun. November 9 – Gdansk, PL @ Inside Seaside Festival (w/ The Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra) Mon. November 10 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle (Rave Set) Tue. November 11 – Prague, CZ @ SaSaZu (Rave Set) Wed. November 12 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer (Rave Set) Fri. November 14 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen (Rave Set) Sat. November 15 – Gothenburg, SE @ Gothenburg Film Studios (Rave Set)
* w/ Etran De L’Aïr ^ w/ King Stingray # w/ King Stingray, DJ Crenshaw $ w/ DJ Crenshaw % w/ Babe Rainbow, Gaye Su Akyol, King Stingray, Mannequin Pussy, Memo PST, Pearl Charles, The Mystery Lights, The Songs For Kids Band!, White Fence, DJ Crenshaw
