L.W. - King Gizzard And The LIzard Wizard: Review
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
are one of the definitive bands in the contemporary Australian psych rock scene who have been prolifically releasing sonically diverse concept albums over the past decade. L.W. is the sister album to last years K.G. and they both follow in the footsteps of some of the bands earlier experiments in microtonal tuning.
Review By Lav:
Generally I would consider myself a big fan of King Gizz and they even have a number of albums that I absolutely love. Unfortunately the experiments in microtonal desert rock have no been among my favorites. The bands first adventure into this sound was 2017's Flying Microtonal Banana may have been my least favorite of their famous 5 albums released that year. They followed it up with last years K.G. which similarly underwhelmed me and left me hoping that the band would be going in a drastically different direction next. Obviously that isn't the case but I still went into L.W. with an open mind. While it suffers from many of the same flaws as the previous two entries and falls far short of my favorite Gizz albums, I don't hate the album and it certainly has a few worthwhile moments.
I want to get my biggest complaint about the record out of the way first. There are a number of tracks on here that sound JUST like previous Gizz songs, often they simply sound like a mix of ideas the band has already thoroughly explored and occasionally they sound so much like specific other tracks it's distracting. O.N.E suffers from this in a major way and has almost nothing new or interesting to add, while Static Electricity is serving as the token lowkey song in the tracklist that almost all their albums have and it features backing vocals that suffer largely from the rough mixing style they employ. The worst example of all is See Me which sounds so much like the Polygonwanaland song Crumbling Castle it is impossible to judge it as its own piece. The track isn't terrible but its so derivative that it feels like it could have been made completely out of already existing assets and then slapped onto this album.
While the sameyness of the record is my biggest complaint and it applies to nearly every song on the record, it isn't my only complaint about some of these songs. The opener If Now Now, Then When? is a thunderous introduction to the record with blistering lead guitar and dissonant metallic percussion. Unfortunately that doesn't last long before it morphs into the same exact desert rock everyone expected to hear on the record but with falsetto vocals that are really light on the performance side and often impossible to make out in the mix. The kookier bits of instrumentation in the second half only make the song easier to skip over entirely. Ataraxia is an incredibly corny song that I can't believe made it onto the record. While it certainly doesn't sound like anything else I've ever heard the band do I honestly would have rather is been derivative. It has reserved vocals and bongo drums that lead into a wiry cosmic hook that makes the whole song sound like a parody of stoner music and it stands out like a sore thumb here.
The record has a couple of pretty good moments that it won't beat you over the head with. East West Link is a short winding piece of similar desert rock that at least features some unique sounding key phrases to switch it up. Pleura was the records only single but I like it a lot more within the records tracklist. I like that there are driving electric passages interlaced with softer acoustic breakdowns featuring reserved vocals. The huge bassline is also a nice guiding force to see the track through. Supreme Ascendency immediately stands out with some pinpoint drumming and a switch-up in vocals that somehow feels Rush inspired even though I can't specifically explain why. The result is a surprisingly refreshing take on the records sound that I really enjoyed coming back to every time given how much it benefits from catchy songwriting.
K.G.L.W is the records huge 8 and a half minute closing track that almost feels like the entire reasons for both the last two records all on its own. It interpolates specific and recognizable musical passages from both KG and LW into one mega jam that closes the series off. Everything here is done with a heavier presentation than the rest of the album and it works really well from the huge bellowing guitar solos to the all-encompassing vocals hanging over everything. It's so much better than almost anything else on both records that I'm almost going to conspiratorial levels as to whether or not its existence is the only reason for this return to the microtonal desert rock style.
This record is fine, mostly tolerable if you like this very specific sound with a few epic high points. Unfortunately re-treading the same ground has never really been a problem for King Gizz before, and whether it comes from their incredibly prolific release schedule or some incredibly specific dedication to this sound, there's nothing worth hearing on the record that fans haven't heard before. I believe in the bands relentless creativity and I think they will be back soon with something entirely new but in the meantime after 3 records in the microtonal series I'm comfortable calling it the most forgettable era of their prolific career so far. 5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
