WIZARDS LIZARD CHARM CRACK

WIZARDS LIZARD CHARM CRACK

The album’s closer, “Her And I,” is a mercurial masterwork: At is core, it’s a breezy, beachside acoustic lullaby, but its winsome verses are offset by shadowy instrumental passages that suggest early-’70s Stones taking a crack at “Riders On The Storm,” making the song feel like a sun-dappled coastal drive that takes periodic detours into the darkest of forests. But the album’s second half eases off the accelerator, culminating in a pair of “slow jams” that embrace both interpretations of the term, showcasing both the band’s amorous side as well as their ability to flex their exploratory ethos even in more patiently paced environs. And really, there was no better home for it: In its exhilarating opening stretch, I’m in Your Mind Fuzz takes Thee Oh Sees’ breakneck psych-punk as its starting point and then ups the strobe-lit mania with all manner of blues-harmonica skronk, phaser effects, and Middle Eastern motifs. King Gizzard’s fifth album, I’m in Your Mind Fuzz, was their first major breakthrough: On top of being their first album to crack the ARIA charts back home, it was also their first to receive a proper North American release, through Jon Dwyer’s Castle Face label. Surely, some diehard fans out there will think this list is complete horseshit and could easily draft up a completely different list of 10 all-time Gizzard bangers. Nonetheless, to mark the 10th anniversary of their debut album (and to give newcomers a chance to play catchup), we’re going to attempt to distill 10 years of abundant output into 10 tracks that represent the most significant pit stops on the band’s endless rocket-ride into the unknown. Furthermore, the conceptual, interconnected nature of so many King Gizzard records means the individual tracks may lose some of their impact when they’re stripped out and dropped into a randomly sequenced “Essentials” playlist. Likewise, there’s no string of chart-certified singles to provide an easy roadmap to their evolution, and don’t bother looking to streaming services for any clarity - for much of the past half-decade, their most popular song on Spotify was “ Work This Time,” an atypically chill 2014 lo-fi oddity that got algorithmed into a semi-hit (at least until it mysteriously disappeared from the service). King Gizzard don’t have a single definitive record that towers over the rest of their discography this is a band prone to changing course so often, no one album can possibly provide the complete picture.

At this point, King Gizzard have essentially become the musical equivalent of a Hello Fresh box showing up on your doorstep every Friday.<īut where the seasoned fan has developed an insatiable appetite for new King Gizzard music rivaled only by Homer Simpson at an all-you-can-eat buffet, for newcomers, the question of where to jump into their canon becomes ever more daunting.

Let’s put it this way: In April, King Gizzard released a mammoth 16-track, 80-minute double album, and that already feels like an afterthought compared to an October that brings three new records released within three weeks of one another. And it seems like any obstacle that gets thrown their way - lineup changes, a global pandemic, Crohn’s disease - only strengthens their resolve to be the most prolific rock band on the planet. In their first decade of existence, Melbourne ensemble King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have already produced enough music to last several lifetimes.

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