King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - K.G. Review
this latest foray into microtonality ultimately falls a little flat
Over the past five years, King Gizzard has been one of the most prolific bands in the business, most notably releasing five albums in 2017 alone. Throughout this time, they have also experimented with several different sub-genres, from the psychedelic rock that generally characterises the band to ventures that vary from jazz-rock to thrash metal. As a whole, it is their level of experimentation that has generally set King Gizzard apart and helped the development of such a strong cult following over the past decade. On K.G., King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard find themselves returning to the sound to which I most closely relate them, microtonal psychedelic rock, but in so doing I feel that they do not bring anything particularly new or gripping to the table.
Microtonality refers to the guitar tuning used, a tuning which is historically much more commonly heard in Arabic and Turkish music. The album as a whole sounds distinctly foreign because of this and the African rhythms and desert blues that drummer Michael Cavanagh says helped to influence the sound of the album. We are thrown straight into this sound with the acoustic prelude, “K.G.L.W.”, which is a bit of a calm before the storm of “Automation” – a left-over from “Infest the Rat’s Nest”. After a nice, syncopated drum-clap intro, we are given a very classic heavy psych riff here which takes us through the rest of the track. Lyrically, this song seems to present a dystopia with an AI overlord, taking a generally bleak approach, implying a human extinction: “Human comet dinosaur inside a simulation”. However, this track features one of my biggest song-writing pet peeves: a chorus which repeats the same line over and over, which to me seems to be lazy, especially from such a typically eclectic artist. Here, King Gizzard take this frustratingly further with just one repeated word: “automation”.
“Minimum Brain Size”, contrastingly, features some lovely song-writing, which uses a charming mixture of registers to rant about greedy people. It is easy to be thrown off by the soft vocals, as it is clear here that Joey Walker, who provides them, finds these people rather intolerable, calling them to “re-enter the uterus”, where they will “not be missed”. Considering the context of the writing of this album, during the first Covid lockdown, this seems to be referring to those who went overboard with their stocking up, emptying supermarkets of supplies such as toilet roll. However, While it’s not necessarily a sound which is entirely to my taste, it must be said that there is a little more character here than we are given on “Automation”, with some interesting percussion and a subtle synthesiser layer to create a more unique sound without being too on the nose.
The pace of the album really picks up with the tracks “Some of Us” and “Ontology”. Similarly to other tracks throughout the album, there is a slightly apocalyptic theme to “Some of Us”, again being written in the context of spring Covid lockdowns, but with a different direction, pointing to how what we may consider an “apocalypse” is just one of many similar events throughout history; while a significant event, it’s not the literal end of the world. I love the way the guitar follows the melody of the vocals throughout, and the urgency of the instrumentals really brings the track to life. After a little instrumental passage, we then transition pretty seamlessly into “Ontology”, which has a lot more of a Wild West feeling to it, particularly with the guitar riffs before each verse. What really sticks out here is the drumming, which is impressively tight throughout despite the pace of the track. While I find the energy of the track endearing and it feels like the band would have had quite a lot of fun making it, the overall sound, particularly with the guitar solo at the end, I find to be a bit garish and, on top of this, the vocals are a little too low in the mix.
This is followed by what I would consider the most interesting track on the album: “Intrasport”. Sonically, it’s sort of Bollywood meets disco, which is a combination which works surprisingly well and sounds refreshingly strong. Again, there is a sense that a lot of fun was had in the making of this track, which is utterly infectious. The lyrics are, again, quite dark, but this time they follow the thoughts of a character who dissociates and discusses urges to kill: “I used to dream about killing certain people” – in this way it’s another track, like “Minimum Brain Size”, where you wouldn’t guess the themes of the song from its instrumental sound. We are then given a beautifully smooth transition into “Oddlife”. As a track, it does feel as if “Oddlife” is constantly waiting to burst but we are made to wait until the three-minute mark for that finally to happen when the bridge comes in. While not at all a bad song, it fails to stand out so much, and wouldn’t ever really be listened to beyond the context of this album.
“Honey” is a cute little love song, with some nice microtonal acoustic guitar, which also seems to be the most lyrically positive track on the album, finding some escapism in being in love “Days are ever sweeter when I wake up near ya/The world we're in is broken and you're the magic potion”. Sweet and endearing, “Honey” would have been a great place to close the album. Unfortunately, it is followed by “The Hungry Wolf of Fate”, which I find to be honestly a little obnoxious, particularly with how loud the guitars like to be here. The Black Sabbath aesthetic is also not one which I find appealing and, as such, I feel this makes for a rather disappointing closer personally.
While the instrumentals here demonstrate impressive musicianship, with particular credit to the drumming of Cavs, this latest foray into microtonality ultimately falls a little flat for me. Despite some satisfying transitions and the tasteful incorporation of synths to expand the sound a little, there is little that pulled me back to this album other than knowing I needed to write this review – I feel very lukewarm about it. Aesthetically, King Gizzard do tend to go for a slightly kitsch approach, and that is no different here. While charming, it’s unfortunately not enough to engage me here, and there are some parts, particularly the guitar solos, which I find to be genuinely unappealing. That said, there are some really strong tracks here, and the lyrics, while not entirely focused for the duration of the album, provide some nice narratives on a track by track basis. Unfortunately, the vocals are often too low in the mix for these lyrics to fully shine.
