Review Summary: Gimme the Mushrooms, Time to Leave...
What’s there left to say about King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard that hasn’t already been said before. The productivity of this band is completely off-the-rails, and their creativity seems to know no bounds. With this record the aptly titled ‘Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava’ sees KGLW constructing longer songs that vary from their proggy-jam rock that defined their previous record ‘Omnium Gatherum’ to more-jazzy psychedelic cuts that ebb-and-flow through the rockier cuts. Coming off ‘Omnium Gatherum’ and ‘Butterfly 3000,’ I began to feel that KG were running out of steam with Butterfly being a bit underwhelming and Omnium feeling bloated and overlong, but this new record really takes the best parts of some of their most recent work and combines these elements to my excitement. While still a bit bloated at over an hour long, the tracks flow a bit better and connect well sonically creating a more cohesive record than the previous two.
Every track on this thing clocks over at least six minutes so each track has a lot of content, jamming and quirkiness to get through. The opening track “Mycelium” is equal parts quirky, equal parts impressive instrumentally with some very nice guitar melodies. The lyrics on this thing are as deranged as usual but are a bit more interesting and unique especially with lines like “Bursting beams of hopping rabbits/Organs bleed with sucking maggots/Metallic teeth, ancient goblet/Increase the dosage with a droplet.” “Ice V” follows this track as the first and only single released prior to album drop and sets in at a lofty ten plus minutes in length. Lyrically, the story is basically incohesive, but the words used, and their delivery is priceless and perfectly entertaining. Plus like many KG tracks, the instrumentals are super fun and enjoyable and while this track does go on for a little too long, it does justify its length with some very great drum work, guitar work and vocal performances.
My favorite track on here “Magma” follows and delivers more quintessential KG nuttiness. The song is defined by a couple long verses and an eccentric bridge but most importantly, this thing feels massive from the production choices to the buildups in the instrumental compositions; it’s a very massive, grandiose sounding song. The track “Hell’s Itch” is also one of my favorites with the lyrics pertaining to a case where you have an unsatisfiable itch except amplified and personified to KG levels. Lines like “If I only could locate this bug/Oozing under like a slug/I'd slice my skin to get within/Lacerate my own linchpin/Nominate my next of kin/Destroy myself with no chagrin” really accentuates the over-the-top nature of this song's story. The band continues the eccentricity with the instrumentals being layered very nicely and matching the bombast of the lyricism.
The closing track “Gliese 710” is the only track I’m not super fond of in terms of structure and instrumentation with its eight-minute runtime feeling like it unlike many of the other songs on this record that match that length. While certainly not a bad track, it doesn’t wrap the album up as nicely as a track like “Iron Lung” or “Magma” would in my opinion. This record certainly is an improvement over the previous couple of outings with much of the material feeling very complete and well-fleshed out in comparison. The lyrics continue their signature kookiness and the vocal performances by Stu and Ambrose are nuanced and fun as they normally are. While I’m looking forward to the other three records being released this month, I find it hard to believe that KG can top the quality of this release.
Top Tracks:
“Magma”
“Mycelium”
“Hell’s Itch”
“Iron Lung”
