King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Murder of the Universe (2LP, Cosmic Carnage edition, splattered & etched vinyl) [ATO]

Why you'll love it

The Cosmic Carnage edition spreads the album over three sides of splattered vinyl and etches the fourth. Murder of the Universe reached No. 3 on the ARIA albums chart and was the second of five albums the band put out in 2017.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Cosmic Carnage edition
• Splattered vinyl
• Etched D-side

About the album

Most bands manage one concept album in a career. King Gizzard put three into a single record, each a spoken-word suite told over relentless prog-metal riffing, recorded and produced by Stu Mackenzie at the band's Flightless HQ in Melbourne.

The Tale of the Altered Beast, narrated by Leah Senior, follows a human who merges with a mystical beast and loses its mind. The Lord of Lightning vs. Balrog stages a full-blown duel, and Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe follows a lonely cyborg whose experiments take the whole cosmos down with him. "Altered Beast I" and "The Lord of Lightning" hit hardest, "Digital Black" grinds, and "Han-Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg" is gloriously strange. Mackenzie wrote the lyrics and most of the stories, Joey Walker co-wrote the last one, and the songs flow into each other like one continuous piece.

Rough Trade ranked it 24th among its albums of 2017, and Jason Galea's artwork is as wild as the stories. The final chapter is read by a text-to-speech voice called Charles, which must make it the heaviest gig on his CV.

Also at Kops: more King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On ATO (cat# KGLW-025-2LP), a reissue of the 2017 album.