Out in the constellation Serpens is a star that astronomers have noted for a particular reason: it’s approaching us, and at a relatively fast pace. Gliese 710 is still millions of light years away from us but is traveling at 32,000 miles per hour right to the Milky Way Galaxy. While it will not directly hit Earth, in a few million years it will most likely pass through the Oort Cloud, a distant region of the galaxy which is home to a large amount of icy debris that could be thrown towards Earth. To close out Ice, Death… King Gizzard names the final song after this star. Like all of the songs on the album, “Gliese 710” uses a unique scale and for this song in particular, the band chose Locrian. In an interview with Guitar World, Stu said that this was the hardest song on Ice, Death… to create. “Locrian was easily the hardest. We were nervous about it so left it last! It’s easy to play Locrian and sound dissonant, but I wanted us to sound deliberate and melodic, but maintain the loose, freewheeling feeling of the jam it came from. We’d done all these other jams beforehand, so once we got into a groove and a pattern, that one, which we called ‘Gliese 710’, kind of clicked.” The music is dark but grand with a taste of Red-era King Crimson — perfect for an apocalyptic scenario like the one 710 could bring. The lyrics drive this home by taking the topics seen throughout Ice, Death… and bringing them to a close by spelling out their end.

The song’s devastating lyrics were written by Stu, Ambrose, Cook and Lucas while the music was written and performed by Stu (guitar/piano/bass/vocals/organ/flute/percussion), Ambrose (keyboards/saxophone/percussion/vocals), Cavs (drums), Cook (keyboards/guitar/bass) and Lucas (bass/keyboards/piano). It was released on October 7th, 2022.

“Gliese 710” has never been played live but Stu said it was on his to-do list and could be possible for the band’s 2024 tours. This was further hinted at in a poll during the livestream of 2024-09-05.