In the event that they’re not on the street, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard are more likely to be discovered within the studio, writing songs for a number of albums concurrently. There’s little downtime within the Australian psych-wizards’ camp, and so far, they’ve shared a monumental 26 albums since their formation in 2010.
The band’s chief, and self-proclaimed “mad professor”, Stu Mackenzie humorously describes his have to create as a manner of “emptying the trash” from his thoughts. A part of this “purge” consists of the band’s steady have to experiment. Whether or not it’s recording a set of songs timed precisely on the identical size (Quarters), inventing new devices (Flying Microtonal Banana), dropping albums that pinball erratically between genres (Omnium Gatherum), or recording an album as one lengthy infinite loop (Nonagon Infinity), King Gizzard are persistently crossing new boundaries, making surprising strikes, and redefining the artwork of music-making.
However with such a gargantuan output, for brand new listeners, it’s troublesome to know the place to begin. Due to this fact we’ve cherrypicked their 5 greatest albums as a straightforward gateway into their strange world.
So sit again, strap in, and in the event that they occur to launch a brand new album by the point you’ve completed studying this, we’ll you’ll want to recalculate.
Nonagon Infinity (2016)
In 2016, King Gizzard broke by way of to the Australian albums chart for the primary time with Nonagon Infinity, a nine-song report designed to be performed as one infinite loop. As if powered by some type of spluttering, rusty motor, opener Robotic Cease units the speedy tempo, its introduction additionally doubling because the crescendo of nearer Highway Prepare.
In the meantime, every tune rolls seamlessly into the following for a steady singular experience, as Mackenzie whizzes by way of inter-dimensional tales of robots and monsters, casting listeners into an inescapable “warped science-fiction darkish fantasy world”. Happily, it’s a world with enjoyable bursting by way of its stratosphere, stand-out tracks together with the rootin’-tootin’ cowboy hat-flinging Gamma Knife, in addition to Evil Loss of life Roll, which appears to soundtrack a cosmic surf by way of treacherous waters, the place extraterrestrial reptiles await to “sever limbs”. Crikey!
Flying Microtonal Banana (2017)
An album which spotlights King Gizzard’s reward for experimentation, 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana – the primary of 5 LPs they launched that yr – was christened after the invention of their very personal instrument, a guitar modelled from the Center Japanese bağlama. The band’s guitars, harmonicas and keyboards had been all given the microtonal therapy, which supplied them with a broader span of notes and tunings not acquainted in Western music, and their tinkering gave technique to considered one of their most peculiar and modern albums so far.
Topped by fan-favourite Rattlesnake, which reintroduces extra of Nonagon Infinity’s krautrock briskness, the album shortly redirects onto a extra laid-back and unfamiliar street, its discordant melodies working to mystify, quite than boldly shock.
Lyrically impressed by environmental anxieties, the album’s bohemian zurna-honking psychedelia makes for the proper playground for exploring the uncertainty of the Earth’s future with out being too heavy-handed. On Melting, Mackenzie’s vocals eerily slither by way of the hypnotic microtones, the place as on Open Water, panic bubbles simply beneath the floor. Mesmerising, extremely unusual and quintessentially King Gizz.
Infest The Rats Nest (2019)
For 2019’s Infest the Rats Nest, the Aussie experimentalists took one more shocking flip, relinquishing their psychedelic sensibilities for an album far heavier than something they’d launched up till that time.
Turning to the music that impressed them rising up, King Gizzard is a thrashing, apocalyptic protest towards the Billionaire house race – ‘Mars for the privileged, Earth for the poor’ – tackling themes of local weather change and ecological catastrophe inside a sci-fi-inspired storyline a few group of people who attempt to escape Earth by colonising Venus, although they ultimately find yourself in hell.
For this report, the seven-strong King Gizzard energy by way of as a uncommon trio, fashioned of Mackenzie, co-guitarist Joey Walker and drummer Michael Cavanagh. Regardless of this slimmed-down line-up, the racket made by the trio is something however pared again ; there’s nods to Metallica with their thrashy, old fashioned helpings on Planet B, Motorhead on the Overkill-adjacent Venusian 2, and Black Sabbath on the head-tipping, doom steel cracker Superbug, all menacingly voiced by Mackenzie, who channels the low and gruff rasp of some type of hellish imp.
Omnium Gatherum (2022)
Probably the perfect entry level for any newcomer, their twentieth studio album Omnium Gatherum covers nearly each style throughout the Gizzverse. From the stoner-y thrash of Gaia and Predator X – full with Danny Carey-style drumming and abrasive prog steel riffing – the bouncing hip-hop of Sadie Sorceress and The Grip Reaper, the lax afro-funk of Presumptuous to the glittering psychedelic pop on The Backyard Goblin, this report lays testomony to the Aussie’s meritorious songwriting talents and seamless knack for genre-hopping.
Omnium Gatherum is the group’s first double album set, and it kicks off with the 18 minute album spotlight The Dripping Faucet, a wild psychedelic freakout with blinding guitar-neck-strangling solos and a weird ear-invading vocal line: ‘drip, drip from the faucet do not slip on the drip’.
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Daybreak of Everlasting Evening: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Starting of Cruel Damnation (2023)
In 2023, King Gizzard got down to launch a pair of sister-albums following a “yin and yang” design. Although associated, the 2 initiatives can be drastically completely different, ensuing within the disco and Kraftwerk-inspired The Silver Twine and its darker predecessor, the bowel-draining thrash epic PetroDragonic Apocalypse (its full mouthful of a title listed above). Having famous how a lot enjoyable steel is to carry out, Mackenzie returned to the identical three-person arrange as 2019’s Infest The Rats Nest, whirling the noise-meter to its uppermost limits with earsplitting, jammering riffs and percussion so explosive it may uproot the Earth.
Within the studio, PetroDragonic Apocalypse was created “backwards”, firstly jammed out to match Mackenzie’s tales about “humankind, Planet Earth” and likewise “witches, dragons and shit”. It is a distinctly nerdy, D&D-flavoured report with Pagan-undertones, churning up photos of planet-devastating storms, cauldron-stirring sorcerers, druids, dragon hearth and witch-killing monsters. The music video for the exultant Gila Monster was even directed to come back throughout as a fourth The Lord Of The Rings movie. Highlights embrace the transcendental Device-inspired stretches of Motor Spirit, the fantastical darkish poetry of Witchcraft and the blustering pant-blackening thrash of Flamethrower. An absorbing, mind-altering journey, and definitely considered one of King Gizzard’s most interesting ever releases.