King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard take us on a whirlwind of psychedelic fun on first double album ‘Omnium Gatherum’
Delving into jam-band territory with sound experiments old and new, the Australians have rediscovered the boundless fun-loving freedom that defined them.
Photo: Jason Galea
Melbourne’s King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are not just a nationwide treasure at this stage, but more a global phenomenon. Since 2012, the six-piece have crafted their own Gizzverse for adoring fans and managed to release five albums in one year back in 2017. Now we find ourselves here. Twenty albums deep, ten years later. Surely there are no genres left untouched by Stu Mackenzie and co.?
Well, it turns out there are. Having all members back writing in a room together for the first time since their thrash outing Infest the Rats’ Nest has been said to redefine their recording process. And thus begins their “jammy period” according to frontman Mackenzie.
Omnium Gatherum is a tantalising banquet for diehard Gizzheads in its sixteen-track scope and a whistle-stop tour of their discography’s numerous sounds. Normally you couldn’t count an hour and twenty minutes as a whistle-stop tour but, in their case, you can.
The initial single and opener The Dripping Tap whisks you immediately into a KGLW live show setting, the band members trading solos and whooping for its eighteen-minute duration. Yep, jam band. But not quite Phish. It’s far from boring. The main refrain, pared-down at the start and built up in its later iterations, is handled by Ambrose Kenny-Smith, the band’s multi-instrumentalist. It’s catchy and harks back to the 70s. The “drip drip from the tap, don’t slip / drip drip from the tap, don’t slip on the drip” section is hypnotic, Rattlesnake-esque. In fact, their OTT psychedelic sound is a callback to, in my opinion, their glory years of I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, Quarters or Nonagon Infinity.
You could write a whole review of the opener, but the fifteen other cuts all deserve praise. Magenta Mountain was offered as a single with a chilled atmosphere hinging on their Butterfly 3000 synth work. Kepler-22b sees Cook Craig sampling Australian jazz pianist Barney McAll with aplomb. You can always count on Joey Walker to pen their stranger tracks, who lends his two hands to thrash throwback Gaia and Ambergris — a soft, funky, heady sojourn.
Even alongside the music itself, I’m always a fan of the lyrical themes and song titles referencing fantastical, magical nonsense. On that topic, Sadie Sorceress is Beastie Boys worship, all about a witchlike figure with a penchant for ‘tinnies and Glenfiddich’. Bizarre.
Evilest Man is one of the longest tracks where Mackenzie bleats on about wanting to become a fox, but also misinformation and phone hacking, more in line with serious worldly matters. Later cuts The Grim Reaper and Presumptuous manage to rekindle the band’s love for microtonal experiments and jazz lounges, while exploring hip hop and elevator music. The whole meandering journey culminates in blissed-out closers Candles and The Funeral. Then, breathe. It’s a long road but a joyful, interesting hoot. Like a double album version of the hodgepodge that was Gumboot Soup, and that’s alright with me.
Time has become weirdly distorted in the past couple of years, and it seems that my time is defined by the space between new King Gizzard releases. You can bet your bottom dollar that this won’t be the last of the 2022 releases from the band. This twentieth effort should keep us afloat ‘til then, right?