King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard possess a back catalogue sizeable enough that they could have been going as long as psychedelia itself. Yet all seventeen albums date from the last ten years. The Australian sextet are often described as prolific, hard-working, and fun. They’re also a bit demented, reigning over a writhing mass of interconnecting riffs and themes across their gargantuan discography.
The band don’t just toss the rulebook out the window – they never had a copy in the first place. Instead, they write their own, a magical guide to the Gizzverse that shifts with each record, like a new world appearing at the top of the Faraway Tree. In 2017, they decreed that they’d release five full-length albums in one year, the first of which, ‘Flying Microtonal Banana’, focused on “the notes between the notes”, using custom-made instruments tuned to microtones to reach beyond the limits of Western rock.
Companion pieces ‘K.G.’ (released last November) and ‘L.W.’ pick up this microtonal thread, with Turkish instruments and a distinctly middle-eastern lean. It might seem unusual for a band known for reinventing the wheel to return to an old idea, but hey – there are no rules! Both halves of the project retain elements of grandiose rock and stoner sludge, though ‘L.W.’ sadly possesses no equivalent to the intergalactic disco of ‘K.G.’s best track, ‘Intrasport’. If anything, ‘L.W.’ dials up the Arabic sound, which reaches its zenith on ‘Static Electricity’, but takes seed in every track. Imagine Tame Impala meets Black Sabbath… in a casbah.
“Ah, lovely,” you might think, “some psychedelic rock for my brain to melt into, sweet relief from the ugly clamour of the world.” Not so much. Opener ‘If Not Now Then When?’ frets over Big Pharma, data and tech warfare, and impending environmental disaster. ‘East West Link’ wades into the debate over the controversial Australian freeway planned to connect the country’s coasts, while ‘O.N.E.’ admits to the terrible habit of doomscrolling.
Yet when the band sing “Never wanna get out of bed when I live in this world” they sound like lethargic sixth formers as much as politically-aware musicians. Lethargy persists on tempered track ‘Ataraxia’ – though the underlying anxiety of its lyrics challenges the ‘mental serenity’ of its title. Meanwhile, nerdy lines like “One more piece of Jenga to pull / Then Necromancer will thank us all” suggest the sixth formers are never far away.
Final track ‘K.G.L.W.’, first seen as the short introduction to ‘K.G.’, has grown into a rollicking eight-minute epic. Part war cry, part initiation ceremony, part spiritual chant of “K.G.L.W”, it’s a Ben-Hur of a song, with whistling pipes, chugging guitars, and literal metal elements – drawbridges, anvils, and saws. The stand-out track wraps up a second act that contains no surprises. But like its counterpart, ‘L.W.’ enfolds you entirely in the idiosyncratic Gizzverse – and at the moment, there’s something highly enjoyable about being transported elsewhere.