Australian rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (“Omnium Gatherum”) released their 21st studio album, “Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava,” on Oct. 7. The album is the first of a trio of albums the band announced for the end of this year, a testament to its infamous constant releases. The band has 21 albums on its discography, plus live albums and extended plays, yet has only existed since 2010.
KGLW is primarily a psychedelic rock band, but its genre switch-ups give it an avant garde credibility like that of Mr. Bungle (“The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny”) and Animal Collective (“Time Skiffs”). The band has dabbled in stoner metal and synth pop, and while its last album was noted for its wild variations in sound, this new album is an average of a wide-ranged set. In short, this is a very Gizz album.
The opener, “Mycelium,” sounds like a progged up version of an old Beach Boys (“That’s Why God Made the Radio”) track. A smooth refrain of the title with a wobbly guitar solo transports the listener to a vintage Florida beach. The lyrics, however, surreally contrast with the lax-ness of the music. The barely audible vocals make out a paean to the life of a fungus, even among odd lines like “Bursting beams of hopping rabbits/Organs bleed with sucking maggots.”
“Mycelium” is a particularly catchy and blood pressure-reducing track that works well as the indie kid’s answer to their grandpa’s “Margaritaville” soundtrack. To describe each song further, though, would be to fluff a review with redundancy. On an album with tracks that reach up to 13 minutes long, over-consistency can turn into a snoozer.
The wild absurdity of the Gizz is in full force with this album, but instead of the noisy Butthole Surfers (“Weird Revolution”) rage they experimented with on their previous work, the Gizz have chilled down to a more Vulfpeck (‘’The Joy of Music”) vibe.
Yet, this new album seems like a walking contradiction. The tracks are exemplary Gizz, featuring long, psychedelic jams, fantastical, imagistic lyrics and prog rhythms that harken back to the days the band had two drummers. Despite this devotion to experimentation and perfecting their sound, this new album seems so consistent and Gizz-typical that it loses any sense of leftfield-ness the band built its image on. The album lacks the urgent rhythms of “Nonagon Infinity’’ or the unhingedness of their last effort, “Omnium Gatherum.” Given the gimmick of the band’s promise of three new albums in a short lapse, one would not be too cynical to claim that this new album was produced without reception in mind.
Should this be a fault? Music does not need to be amazing to be good. Yet, with a band as prolific and wild as, to repeat the name again, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, it is a bit disappointing to say that they have somehow made a middling album. “Ice, Death, Plants, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava” is a product of KGLW, the band’s personal label.
Image from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard via YouTube
