Review Summary: The best way to gizz with the wizz
As the
King Gizzard LPs pile up and the collective discourse w/r/t them grows, the more skepticism I’ve noticed bubble to the top of the conversation: of the shallow depth inherent in the jam band formula, at least when used to write quite so many songs quite so quickly; of genre-switching gimmickry, and its inability to effectively mask the gaps in substance that such a restrictive/reductive approach (prolificality and all) leaves; of the disconnect between the lavish praise from fans and the basic, brass merit of the work, whether in terms of present innovation or future legacy; and of doing little more than pay tribute to the sounds of others, as opposed to carving the own unique path. The words “shallow” and “undeserving” and “shit” have been tossed around like hotcakes. They (the hotcakes) are probably correct. They (the hotcakes) do not, however, apply here.
There’s a moment in “The Dripping Tap (Live at Red Rocks ‘22)” where my soul floated up through my skull and left my body, gone,
poof. The chosen opener of concert two - being track number 28 of the 86 total tunes stuffed into this triple concert compilation - is genuinely transportative, disconnecting brain from docking station, catapulted into clouds of purple and green. The tempo’s kicked up, as is the scuzz, fuzz and texture of the piece, reverberating with spasms and sweat and humanity, all in real time. It takes an excellent but stiff gizz tune from 2022’s
Omnium Gatherum and cracks the sucker wide open, letting the secret sauce flood out across 16 fluorescent, joyous minutes. Come to think of it, it might actually be the only song in this 513-minute marathon that’s actually shorter than the studio cut, by virtue of its speedyboi energy, given every other song is warped into a longer, more tentacled beast. Take, too, the 12-minute rendition of
K.G. cut “Straws in the Wind”, double what the album variant allowed for, oozing with delicious microtonal desert rock, or, too, the 20-minute “The River” (from
Quarters), blissed up stretched out captivating and iconic.
Live at Red Rocks ‘22 revitalises dudd cuts and band classics alike, conjuring pure magic out of improv, elongation, and the free spirit of the jam.
It’s not as if the aforementioned hotcakes are unconvincing, or even wrong, though, at least applied to the group’s broader discography. Even as a long-time and ongoing fan, I’ll readily admit the Aussie rockers have as many misses as hits, maybe more(?), frequently swirling around the plughole of self-parody and derivation, notwithstanding the fresh coats of paint hurriedly applied to each new record. Obviously, the
fourth coming of Christ levels of praise they receive is extravagant and undue and unnecessary, particularly given their own self image as a silly band with silly songs that ought never to have made it this far from their silly bedroom “studio”. My best and only defense, it seems, to the deluge of butter milk and egg, to carve out an exception, is to point to this here
thing - the subject of this “review” - and gawk and gush with glee.
Digging down to the subtext:
Red Rocks is Stu and co’s best album and no we will not be taking questions thank you. It drops the studio sterility, surface level eclecticism and identitylessness, amalgaming instead into a genuine definitive band statement. This bulbous beast, more than the sum of its parts, is the vehicle through which the guys solidify their voice; an epitome of their 10 year career; something genuinely worthy of posterity; one for the ages,
finally. The variety displayed here - no track repeated, no genre outstayed - wards off feelings of tack and depthlessness, particularly when coupled with the singularity of character all three performances maintain, fostered by the blind energy and breathless passion that underpins the whole excessive, jubilant mess. Its unnecessary girth - spanning nine CDs or twelve records, depending on the format copped - is, itself, part of that character: ungainly and unsubtle in the extreme, just as the gizz like it; for although this collection could have been released as three separate concerts or, alternatively, trimmed down to its best songs and still filled a 4-hour release, the sense of scale retained here, instead, full fat and uncut, is dumb and hilarious and celebratory and epic and so very, very
them; a testament to their
throw shit at wall approach to album-craft, condensing the gargantuan gizzverse into something coherent, definitive, with floorboards and bathroom tiles and tangible, physical presence; a decade, a journey, an ethos, solidified. Structurally, too, it’s a mindfuck, practically insisting that you get lost in the soup after a few hours, stoned and upside-down and pleased by the whole juvenile, garish romp; and that’s to say nothing of the production/mixing - oh how I wish all their studio recordings had this much electricity to them - or how spellbinding the performances are - the band a well-oiled machine, gelling together like oatmeal with call and response and back and forth, yet members’ individually stellar, drum solos and vocal inflections and titanic grooves holding their own as highlights - or of all the affecting in-jokes ad libs pleases and thank yous, candorous and heartfelt and good, compounding more and more how much this 3-day long 3-year-in-the-making project meant to them, to be able to produce perform disseminate share, three massive gigs at one iconic venue, and to have people care, actually care, genuinely care, for some fucking reason, about 6 blokes from Melbourne and their daft daft daft antics.
