When a band hits the stage with more than five members, you’re looking at something that’s bound to be either a spectacle or a complete fiasco. Sure, the history of popular music is full of excellent bands with unwieldily large lineups (Funkadelic, Talking Heads on Stop Making Sense). Sometimes, it’s just a mess (various jam, nu-metal, and high school talent show bands). King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are a seven-person band from Australia who specialize in unpredictable psychedelic music. Their ranks include two drummers, three guitarists, and a harmonica player. To reiterate: They’re a septet with a name that sounds like it could’ve been ripped from “Masters of the Universe” who make heady soundscapes punctuated by blues harp.
Ridiculous as this all sounds on paper, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard aren’t wasting anyone’s time with throwaway joke music. While they started as a side-project (following in the great Australian tradition where each member plays in other groups) and self-admitted “joke band”, the Melbourne band have definitely paid their dues over the past four years with critically acclaimed live sets and a prolific string of records. I’m in Your Mind Fuzz is their fifth album to date, and if their discography tells a story, it’s one of a band who never fully settle into one sound. Their album Oddments from earlier this year featured flashes of bubblegum pop and Hammond organ-led soul. On their debut album 12 Bar Bruise, they invoked Oblivians-style garage punk. It’s never clear from the outset exactly which path they’ll explore or what sounds they’ll plop into the mix along the way. Horses neighing, xylophones, and instruments of unidentifiable origins have appeared in their songs, and impressively, King Gizzard always manage to wrangle the chaos into well-crafted compositions.
As usual, the band’s latest collection, I’m in Your Mind Fuzz, partially recorded at Daptone in Brooklyn, isn’t easily categorized. While the blues feels like an inevitable touchstone thanks to Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s harmonica (disorienting as it sounds when caked in psychedelic effects), it’s also got the psych pop jaunt of the Millennium. But as varied as King Gizzard are, they’ve established one surefire safe bet with each record: They implement their “more is more” approach for maximum impact. Their songs are dense, intricately crafted, and most importantly, powerful. It’s appropriate that Mind Fuzz is out via Castle Face (in North America—Heavenly‘s got it out in Europe and Flightless once again have them covered in Australia), as the 17-minute ripper “Am I in Heaven?” is arguably the best Thee Oh Sees track to be released in 2014. There are easy comparisons to be drawn between the two bands—Stu Mackenzie lets out a point-perfect John Dwyer “WOO” before employing explosive, rapidfire guitar lines. And like their label overlords, King Gizz also know when to let urgency eventually give way to elation.
The album’s overall lyrical concept is mind control. If they’ve managed to brainwash their listeners, they’ve done it by making a record that’s hard to tune out. Take, for example, I’m in Your Mind Fuzz‘s absolute peak—the opening 12-minute chunk comprising the four song stretch of “I’m in Your Mind” to “I’m in Your Mind Fuzz”. They churn and choogle relentlessly forward, each rafter-reaching jam bleeding into the next. The rhythm section—bassist Lucas Skinner, drummers Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore—stay locked in the same groove across all four songs while the guitars, harmonica, and Mackenzie’s vocals explore various melodies within that structure—different movements operating in the same theme.
But a steady stream of bangers comes at a price. When you open with a sprint, things eventually have to slow down, and the comedown is right where King Gizzard trip up. Immediately following the all-power introduction are a pair of tracks (“Empty” and “Hot Water”) that sound like watered-down versions of what came before them. They make the save later, though, closing the album with some of their best slow jams. (Two of which are titled “Slow Jam”.) And, right when it seems that they’ve settled into a restrained groove, they shake it up again: the speed picks up, guitar solos are delivered, vocals are augmented and distorted. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard don’t do predictability.
from Album Reviews – Pitchfork http://ift.tt/15RW3EW
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