No Expectations 082: The Dripping Tap
Discography Deep Dive: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. A personal ranking of all 26 studio LPs.
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Headline song: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, “The Dripping Tap”
Thanks for being here. Today’s newsletter is a long one because it’s a Discography Deep Dive on King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. So, you won’t get the regular No Expectations features you’d expect this week but you can find the playlist tucked into the intro. I hope that’s ok. If you live in the States, I recommend using the Labor Day weekend to kick back, touch grass, and listen to great music with a beverage and a hot dog. After this undertaking, I know I will.
Discography Deep Dive: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
No Expectations is primarily a newsletter about new, under-the-radar music and that’s still the bread and butter here. But with the blog’s weekly publishing schedule, I realized my listening habits have become more focused on finding something novel and interesting than living with a particular artist’s catalog. That’s not ideal: music isn’t ephemeral, no matter what the album cycle suggests. This is why I came up with Discography Deep Dive, a series that forces me to be patient, step back from the morass of new releases, and spend time with one oeuvre. Whenever I’d interview an artist or review their album, I’d do my best to devour everything they put out: listening holistically was often more fascinating and fulfilling than anything I could write.
When I kicked off this series last year, I started relatively small: Vampire Weekend’s four LPs and I eventually tested myself with Radiohead’s nine albums. My friends joked that I should write one on an uber-prolific band like Guided By Voices or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard next. While they were kidding around, I love nothing more than committing to a bit. I started planning this almost a year ago when Gizz announced a “three-hour marathon set” Sunday at Chicago’s Northerly Island. Here it finally is.
King Gizzard the Lizard Wizard have the most bonkers, unwieldy catalog in modern rock. Since forming in 2010, the Melbourne six-piece band fronted by lead songwriter and creative force Stu Mackenzie has released 26 studio albums, 16 live albums, four compilations of demos, three EPs, and one remix album. They’re an Australian psych-rock outfit that nurtured a jam band-like mentality to serve their fanbase and a doggedly idiosyncratic attitude to create as freely and unselfconsciously as possible.
Over the past year, I’ve listened to everything. (I know.) For my sanity, I’m only honing in on the studio efforts (sorry to the 2011 EP Willoughby’s Beach). I’m also ignoring side projects like the Murlocs, which feature Gizz multi-instrumentalists Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Cook Craig. The same goes for Bullant, the electronic outlet for guitarist Joey Walker, drummer Michael Cavanaugh’s experimental project Cavs, and bassist Lucas Harwood’s Heavy Moss band.
I admit I initially avoided the band because I thought their name was annoying. That changed 10 years ago after hearing raves about their debut American performances at Levitation Fest in Austin and a residency at New York’s Baby’s All Right. 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz blew me away—an elevated, more charging version of the Osees/Ty Segall garage rock I loved at the time. While the band might have a “merry prankster” disposition, they took their music with utmost seriousness. Since then, they’ve released music at an overwhelmingly relentless pace. Their live shows became unpredictable career-spanning sets, with multi-track medleys and instrumental teases of deep cuts and fan favorites, all played with breathless energy.
The adventurous studio output and berserk live shows have catapulted them to a mind-boggling success. This year, they did two nights at the 13,000-cap Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York. In 2022, their tour grossed $3 million and they sold 28,000 tickets during a three-night run at Red Rocks in Colorado. They also sell a hell of a lot of merch. You’ll see them playing arenas soon. It’s a bonafide phenomenon.
Their legions of fans’ cult-like devotion to them is an important part of the band’s story. Gizzheads follow them from show to show, dissect their records online, and map out what’s known as the Gizzverse. They spot thematic, lyrical, and musical links between their albums too. You can find them on message boards debating what the sci-fi and fantastical references to rattlesnakes, vultures, dragons, goblins, and Greek mythology mean. It’s basically Swiftie-like pop standom but without the target harassment and death threats. It can get a little too Reddit as well but it’s a fun outlet for obsessives, creating an almost internet-age Grateful Dead-like following. With vast lyrical world-building, immersive art from “seventh member of the band” and creative director Jason Galea, as well as an inclusive fan-friendly philosophy that promotes tapers, bootleggers, and sharing their music freely, it’s easy to see how someone can get lost in this band.
That said, I’m writing this as someone who’s always liked King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard but never had the time or the energy to wholly immerse myself in their work—until the past year. I’ve only seen them three times, first in 2015 and last at Chicago’s Radius in 2022. If you’re thinking, “You wrote about all 26 of their albums in your newsletter—how can you say you’re not an obsessive superfan?” All I’ll say is that there are levels to this and my self-imposed music-writing challenge is nothing compared to how inscrutable and detailed their fans get about the band. I can’t claim the level of expertise of their most devoted supporters—I just dig the tunes and thought this would be funny thing I could try for the newsletter.
What I discovered from this exhausting exercise is a band I now love—a group that encapsulates what most excites me about music now: left-field turns, unpredictability, and an earnestly infectious love for both writing and performing. It’s both challenged me, beguiled me, annoyed me, and ultimately charmed me. The cool thing about personal lists is that they are personal—your ranking will likely be and should be different than mine. It’s also a testament to the band: they have a couple of dozen records that could feasibly be your favorite. It’s a hard thing to do!
The No Expectations 082 Playlist: Spotify // Apple Music
All songs by King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard
1. “The Dripping Tap”
2. “Robot Stop”
3. “Hot Water”
4. “The River”
5. “Antarctica”
6. “It's Got Old”
7. “This Thing”
8. “Interior People”
9. “Hypertension”
10. “Tezeta”
11. “Change”
12. “Sense
13. “Iron Lung”
14. “Gila Monster”
15. “Mars For The Rich”
16. “Nuclear Fusion”
17. “O.N.E.”
18. “Intrasport”
19. “Loyalty”
20. “Head On/Pill”
If you’re new to the band, I understand how their output seems like a gimmick. It’s certainly not for everyone but I promise it’s a rewarding, exciting, and undeniably endearing catalog to dive into. For neophytes, the playlist above is a good starting point but I’d also recommend either their acoustic show from Live In Brisbane ‘21 or their ripping and loud set at Live at Levitation ‘16, which they both released on Bandcamp and under the “Bootleg Gizzard” name on streaming. Below, you’ll find my personal ranking of the band’s catalog.
26. Eyes Like the Sky (2013)
Don’t let the low ranking fool you. There’s a good argument that Eyes Like the Sky is the coolest King Gizzard and Wizard Lizard LP. When the band first began turning heads with the raucous garage rock of their debut 12 Bar Bruise, they made a sharp, unexpected shift to the spoken-word spaghetti western rock opera here. It’s the first time the band starkly subverted expectations: a legitimate power move for a sophomore effort. With the story written and narrative by band member Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s father Broderick Smith, a renowned songwriter and actor who passed in 2023, it’s a “cult western audiobook” set in the American frontier. While it’s a stellar document of a band beginning to follow its whims freely and a heartwarming collaboration with father and son, it’s the one album I rarely revisit.
Favorite track: “Eyes Like The Sky.”
25. 12 Bar Bruise (2012)
You have to start somewhere. Though the debut album from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is an earnest and rambunctious document of early 2010s garage rock, it lacks the inventiveness that would become the band’s trademark. Still, it’s a blast. The first three songs are outrageously unrestrained doses of Osees and Ty Segall worship. While it is a little frontloaded as an LP, tracks like “Cut-Throat Boogie” and “Sea of Trees” hold up. It’s worth it both as endlessly replayable, dopamine-rush rock and as a portrait of a band figuring things out. As fun as it is, it’s dwarfed by the leaps the band would take immediately after.
Favorite track: “Muckraker”
24. Made In Timeland (2022)
In 2019, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who had already released 15 LPs, announced they would play “career-spanning marathon sets” for their 2020 North American tour. While the run that year never happened (don’t ask why), bandleader Stu Mackenzie started work on music that’d be played during the intermissions of these three-hour-plus shows. That became Made In Timeland. Released in 2022 as an album, it’s a 30-minute release with two 15-minute tracks. The first track “Timeland” is one of the most interesting and ambitious pieces of music the band’s ever attempted. Anchored by a 60bpm metronome that’s the only constant in the song, “Timeland” morphs constantly, from uplifting jazz to thumping electronic to sparse flute music and glitchy freakouts. It’s quite stunning. That said, the second track “Smoke and Mirrors” is just as unpredictable but nowhere near as enthralling. Unlike its spiritual successor Laminated Denim, this release couldn’t carry the momentum of its opener.
Favorite track: “Timeland”
23. Oddments (2014)
Oddments, King Gizz’s fourth LP, is a collection of outtakes from their previous releases yet it somehow contains a few of the band’s most beloved tracks. Single “Work This Time,” an excellent tune, remains the band’s most-streamed song while other tracks like “Sleepwalker” and “Hot Wax” are still in the live rotation. There are other standouts here, like the Joey Walker-sung “Stressin’,” and the anthemic “It’s Got Old” but I’d argue the definitive versions of each song are from their live shows rather than this disjointed, lo-fi album.
Favorite track: “It’s Got Old”
22. Murder of the Universe (2017)
This is where this list becomes controversial. Murder of the Universe is a psych-metal concept album I respect more than I enjoy. Its 27 tracks are broken up into three separate suites, each containing its own story (Suite 1: The Tale of the Altered Beast, Suite 2: The Lord of Lightning vs. Balrog, and Suite 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe). There’s ample narration from Australian artist Leah Senior for parts one and two while an English text-to-speech application tackles the final part. While the music rocks, I’ve never been a fan of spoken-word narration on albums even if the story is enthralling. This is a personal problem, but it’s kept me from loving this LP. Thanks to its set, linear storytelling, it’s one you have to listen to in full and in order.
Favorite track: “The Lord of Lightning”
21. The Silver Cord (2023)
Recorded entirely with vintage synthesizers and an electronic drum kit, The Silver Cord is King Gizzard’s jammy foray into heady electronica. Though they’d attempted a poppier version of this palate before on the excellent Butterfly 3000, which they made remotely during COVID, these open-ended songs came from extended jam sessions where each member fleshed out their parts together in the studio. It’s a two-part record—the first half is a 30-minute album while the latter is a stretched-out, “extended mix” that almost reaches the 90-minute mark. Both are enchanting and immersive listens—I’m partial to the long one. But beyond a few impeccable songs and transcendent sections (the last few minutes of “Swan Song,” namely), I much preferred the yin to The Silver Cord’s yang in the band’s other ‘23 LP, the trash metal PetroDragonic Apocalypse. Though the two records could not sound more different, they mirror each other lyrically and thematically in fascinating ways.
Favorite track: “Swan Song”
20. Gumboot Soup (2017)
King Gizzard were already prolific early on but 2017 was the first time the band attempted to release five studio albums in one calendar year. They barely made it, releasing Gumboot Soup on New Year’s Eve (they were originally going to release Changes, which would eventually come out in 2022 after a few significant tweaks). Like Oddments, the record is composed of material that didn’t make any of the LPs they put out that year, which included a jazz-pop odyssey, an exploration of microtonal instruments, an infinite loop psych-rock opus, and a three-part prog metal concept album. With such a disparate well to draw from, it’s easy to tell which records these songs came from. At the same time, it’s more cohesive than it has any right to be. Though no song is the clear highlight, it’s a breezy and diverse listen to wrap up a banner year.
Favorite tracks: “Superposition” and “The Wheel”
19. Changes (2022)
In a discography full of big swings, the deceptively chill pop of 2022’s Changes might be King Gizzard’s most technically ambitious, music nerd exercise yet. Inspired by the complex harmonic maneuvering of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” this album finds the band constantly alternating between two keys (D and F#) every time they change chords in a song. “For Changes, we took a bit of a jazz kind of thing, whereby every time the chord changes—let's say you moved from a C major to a D major—instead of it being rooted in C, we'll change the key as well,” explained guitarist Joey Walker in an interview. “So, the key changes every two bars or so.” On top of that, each song is based on chord progressions in the opening track “Changes.” If that sounds like a lot, it’s actually a surprisingly seamless listen. While it’s an impressive feat, taken as a whole the record can lag and feel a little wonky.
Favorite tracks: “Changes” and “Gondii”
18. Float Along — Fill Your Lungs (2013)
King Gizzard’s third album is bookended by two top 10 songs in their catalog: opener “Head On / Pill” and the closing title track. Both are towering accomplishments of psych-rock, complete with lengthy guitar jams, impassioned, fist-raising vocals, and frantic instrumental freakouts. Beyond two other good songs, the Ambrose Kenny-Smith-sung soul belter “Let Me Mend the Past” and the feel-good “Pop In My Step” from Cook Craig, the rest is middle-of-the-road garage rock. If this sounds harsh, King Gizz hasn’t played most of these other tunes live since the mid-2010s. For an eight-song album, the band is batting .500 but each hit is a home run.
Favorite tracks: “Head On / Pill” and “Float Along — Fill Your Lungs”
17. Flying Microtonal Banana (2017)
Flying Microtonal Banana came about because Gizzard bandleader Stu Mackenzie got a custom-made guitar modified for microtonal tuning. These instruments have more frets than a standard axe, allowing for more melodic and harmonic possibilities than the semitones that govern Western music. Inspired by Middle Eastern instruments and Turkish psych-rock, he paid his bandmates $200 to retrofit their instruments with microtonal capabilities. Widely considered one of the band’s best releases, I think it’s good but no matter how much I’ve tried, it never climbed the upper echelons of my Gizz rankings. There are undoubtedly some incredible moments like the blitzing pace of “Rattlesnake” and the funky bassline of “Nuclear Fusion,” but this is one where I must break consensus. It’s fine! Its microtonal follow-ups in K.G. and L.W. are better.
Favorite tracks: “Rattlesnake” and “Nuclear Fusion”
16. L.W. (2020)
The third installment in King Gizzard’s Microtonal Trilogy, 2021’s L.W., doesn’t have as high highs as K.G. but is the most cohesive of the bunch. There’s a palpable flow and a dynamism the band displays here, especially when they get righteous on the anti-church abuse “Supreme Ascendancy” and “East West Link,” which critiques a controversial infrastructure project in Melbourne. Its predecessor K.G. opens with “K.G.L.W.” which is reimagined and improved on as a closing track here. At this point in the ranking, we’re getting into some consistently excellent LPs, which makes ordering them by personal preference an exercise in whims, vibes, and minutiae.
Favorite tracks: “O.N.E.” and “Supreme Ascendancy”
15. K.G. (2020)
It’s definitely a cop-out to group King Gizzard’s Microtonal trilogy together but this is honestly just how it panned out. Out of the three, my favorite moments are on K.G. There’s a section of sequential songs on the second that stands among the band’s best with “Ontology,” “Intrasport,” “Oddlife,” and “Honey.” Ambrose Kenny-Smith shines on the live staple “Straws In the Wind” while Joey Walker takes the two best songs on the LP with “Minimum Brain Size” and “Intrasport.” The latter is a pulsating electro-disco nightmare that takes equal cues from Savage Garden and a murder-horror film. I bet if I’m ever bored enough to update this list in the distant future, the Microtonal Trilogy won’t be in the middle of the pack.
Favorite tracks: “Minimum Brain Size” and “Intrasport”
14. Fishing For Fishies (2019)
With arrangements that choogle and three songs with “Boogie” in their title, Fishing For Fishies is King Gizzard’s attempt at roots rock. “We tried to make a blues record,” Stu Mackenzie said of the album in a press release. “A blues-boogie-shuffle-kinda-thing, but the songs kept fighting it — or maybe it was us fighting them. Ultimately though we let the songs guide us this time; we let them have their own personalities and forge their own path.” It’s one of the band’s silliest LPs, but it’s a damn good time. The back-and-forth falsetto vocals from Mackenzie and Ambrose Kenny-Smith soar on the title track opener while “This Sung,” helmed by Joey Walker, builds with a simmering intensity and a rewarding hook. While maybe not a technical accomplishment compared to their sprawling and experimental catalog, it’s loose and lived in.
Favorite tracks: “This Thing” and “Fishing For Fishies”
13. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023)
PetroDragonic Apocalypse is the second out-and-out metal record from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and it’s a more brutal and unrelenting affair than 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest. This is the one genre that I really fell out of love with after being an obsessive teenager, but these songs bring me back to taking my angst out by rinsing Metallica, Sleep, and Black Sabbath. If these tracks feel lived-in and organic, it’s because of the present approach the band took in the studio. “We wrote a song a day, and we came into the practice space with no riffs, no tunes, no ideas, and started from scratch, says Mackenzie. “And we jammed, and recorded everything, and pieced the songs together from that. I’d sketched out the story the songs would tell, and I’d portioned it out into seven song titles, with a short paragraph of what would happen in the song.” From the fist-pumping sing-along vocals on “Gila Monster” to the turbocharged opener “Motor Spirit,” I can’t think of a more fulfilling album to play on the commute home when you had a bad day at work.
Favorite tracks: “Gila Monster” and “Motor Spirit”
12. Quarters! (2015)
2015’s Quarters! is one of the first truly nutty left-field swings in the band’s history (excepting 2013’s Eyes Like the Sky). Composed of four songs, each 10 minutes and 10 seconds long, it’s an exploratory jazz-pop odyssey that lacks the pulverizing aggression of their previous releases. There are no fuzzed-out guitars and no mosh-pit-inducing energy. It’s intricate and lowkey, kicking off with an alltimer Gizz tune in “The River.” Played with a slinking 5/4 rhythm, the song is a marked turning point for the band: a realization of a vision and a validating reminder that your most outside-the-box ideas can also be your best. That tune is a beloved live staple (check out versions from 2020’s Chunky Shrapnel, 2021 Live In Brisbane, and 2023’s Live in Chicago) and still a high watermark. Elsewhere on Quarters!, the kaleidoscopic closer “Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer” and the subdued “Infinite Rise” shine too.
Favorite tracks: “The River” and “Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer”
11. Laminated Denim (2022)
Laminated Denim is an anagram of Made In Timeland and like its predecessor, it boasts two 15-minute tracks centered around the 60bpm ticking of a clock. However, instead of glitchy, era-spanning electronic, this pairing of tunes is more rock-oriented, anchored by a Motorik beat, and pogoing lead guitars. Both songs are superb. Opener “The Land Before Timeland” is a swirling jam, full of guitar theatrics, and each of the band’s six members locking into a mesmerizing groove. It doesn’t let up for the follow-up song “Hypertension,” which somehow raises the intensity with surging drums from Michael Cavanaugh and Lucas Harwood’s bass. It’s unvarnished psychedelia that despite being only two tunes thrills throughout.
Favorite tracks: “Hypertension” and “The Land Before Timeland”
10. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (2022)
In October 2022, King Gizzard put out three albums in quick succession: Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava, then Laminated Denim, and finally Changes. The first release combines the considered, music theory-nerd precision of Changes with the “get everyone in a room” jamming of Laminated Denim. Here, the band writes a song in each of the seven modes of the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. (The album title even serves as a mnemonic device). For a seven-song record, each tune with its own musical and emotional language, the album flows more seamlessly than it has any right to. From the jubilant opener “Mycelium” (Ionian) to the rock’n’roll facemelter “Iron Lung” (Aeolian), the songs are so good you don’t need to know the theory behind them to be impressed.
Favorite tracks: “Iron Lung,” “Ice V,” and “Mycelium”
9. Paper Mâché Dream Balloon (2015)
This is one of the first albums I heard from the band and it remains a sentimental favorite. Despite being a humble and charming collection of understated pop, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon contains some of the purest and simplest songwriting the band’s ever done. Opener “Sense” is the most timeless-sounding song of the band’s oeuvre and front-to-back there are some subtle moments of dazed hooks and acoustic-based arrangements. It’s a bare-bones but excellent palate cleanser for the most overstimulating moments of their catalog. I love it and revisit it often. While I didn’t review it for RedEye Chicago when I got the promo, I found an old Notes app from 2015 where I compared the album to Chicago band Mild High Club. (The two would later tour together and collaborate on the masterful and underrated Sketches of Brunswick East from 2017).
Favorite tracks: “Sense,” “Dirt,” and “Time = $$$”
8. Polygondwanaland (2017)
King Gizzard are one of the most fan-friendly bands going right now. Sure, they’ve released 26 studio albums but they also encourage tapers to capture their unpredictable live shows, allow and support people who sell bootleg merch outside their shows, and make efforts to make their concerts as safe and inclusive as possible for everyone. For Polygondwanaland, the fourth LP they released in 2017, they refused to sell it, making it totally free, and inviting labels and fans to press their own copies of the LP with downloadable vinyl masters available on their website. Beyond the populist marketing strategy, it’s also one of their most cohesive and considered efforts to date. It’s a proggy journey with both masterful sequencing throughout and jaw-dropping standalone tunes. My favorite section comes in the second half with “Inner Cell,” “Loyalty,” and “Horology.” Opener “Crumbling Castle” is unbelievably sick too.
Favorite tracks: “Inner Cell” > “Loyalty” > “Horology”
7. Flight b741 (2024)
One of my favorite things about diving into this band’s catalog is how much they challenge me. They will kill the part of you that wants rules to be followed and your tastes to be acknowledged. If you’ve read this newsletter for a long time, you can probably guess my musical sweet spot is something like “twangy, lively indie rock.” When King Gizzard attempted this on Fishing For Fishies, it didn’t top my rankings as albums where they tried genres outside of my comfort zone like metal, lo-fi-pop, and electronic. Flight b741, their latest and 26th LP, is the exception. This record is impossibly in my wheelhouse and reminds me how much fun it is to hear musicians obviously having the time of their lives in the studio. Not too far from the sonic territory of 2019’s Fishing for Fishies, Flight b741 finds the band firing on all cylinders. Each tune features a round-robin approach to vocals with bandmates trading verses and choruses throughout (each member sings on the LP—a first in KGLW history), and it’s a thrilling listen. My early favorite was “Raw Feel” but now it’s also “Antarctica” and “Sad Pilot.” What a blast: ZZ Top and early Grateful Dead meets Steely Dan and Frank Zappa.
Favorite tracks: “Raw Feel,” “Antarctica,” and “Sad Pilot”
6. Infest the Rats’ Nest (2019)
When King Gizzard write music, they multitask, working on several albums concurrently. They also have a revolving door policy in the studio where all LPs are led and finished by bandleader Stu Mackenzie and other members are free to contribute as much or as little as possible. “Albums will be made with whoever is around," said Ambrose Kenny-Smith in a recent interview. "It seems like whenever Murlocs tour [the other band Kenny-Smith leads with Gizzard member Cook Craig] the guys will go and make a metal album.” Though the two most pop-minded bandmates contribute to their trash metal standout Infest the Rats’ Nest, it’s a labor of love from the Lizard Wizards who grew up listening to heavy music like Mackenzie, Joey Walker, and Michael Cavanaugh. It’s a lean, shred-heavy assault that reminds me why I loved heavy music growing up.
Favorite tracks: “Hell,” “Mars for the Rich,” and “Perihelion”
5. Butterfly 3000 (2021)
Written and recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, Butterfly 3000 is a dense and blissful electronic-pop record anchored by looping polymetric synth arpeggios. Besides the jam-minded synth-table opus The Silver Cord, the 18th King Gizzard LP is their most dancefloor-ready. Despite the global chaos serving as the backdrop of this record’s making, its hopeful tone is due to Mackenzie becoming a father. “I definitely felt like I was in a cocoon before [my daughter] was born,” he said in an NME interview. “A butterfly is just a beautifully easy, metaphorical creature with this bizarre and interesting life cycle. That was the central motif for the whole record. And we tried to use it in every song.” The whole 10-track project undulates with a mesmerizing warmth and it’s their most alluring and interesting electronic experiment yet.
Favorite tracks: “Interior People,” “Catching Smoke,” and “Yours”
4. Sketches of Brunswick East (2017)
This was the record that made me a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard fan. The hooks were tighter than 2015’s Paper Mâché Dream Balloon and its jazzy experimentation was more outre and heady than 2015’s Quarters! an LP-length collaboration with Mild High Club, Sketches of Brunswick East is smooth yet skittish, adventurous but invitingly familiar. The Joey Walker-sung “Tezeta” floored me the first time I heard it and seven years later, I still find flourishes that reveal themselves on deeper relistens. Apart from that standout, the entire offering is full of surprises, sticky grooves, and some of the most gauzy psych-pop of the past decade. It’s arguably the most underrated LP of the band’s catalog. From the welcoming flute that punctuates the slow-burner “Rolling Stoned” to the hypnotic “The Book” and the catharsis of “Dust to Dawn on Lygon Street,” it was the record I needed to hear at 25 and the record I still love just as much now.
Favorite tracks: “Tezeta,” “Dust to Dawn on Lygon Street,” and “Rolling Stoned”
3. I’m In Your Mind Fuzz (2014)
If you’re curious about King Gizzard but prefer studio albums over live shows, I’d suggest you start at 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz. Though I still think the ‘21 Live In Brisbane and ‘16 Live at Levitation concert recordings I recommended at the beginning of this newsletter are the perfect entry points, this LP features the early version of the band at their most exciting. It opens with an astoundingly visceral and electric four-song suite starting with “I’m In Your Mind” to “I’m In Your Mind Fuzz.” It’s the platonic idea of garage psych: the riffs are aggressive, the energy is palpable, and the songs are staggering and cathartic. Even after starting off hot, it gets better with the flute-assisted “Hot Water” and the hair-raising stadium rock of “Am I in Heaven?” With its AI-dystopian sci-fi-inspired lyrics, it hints at the worldbuilding they’d do on future albums. While not a perfect studio recording, it’s raw, wild, and spiritually perfect.
Favorite tracks: “Am I in Heaven?,” “Hot Water,” and “I’m In Your Mind”
2. Omnium Gatherum (2022)
King Gizzard’s White Album. After 20 LPs, the band released its first double album with Omnium Gatherum, their most stylistically varied album yet. Its 16 tracks somehow feel like a Greatest Hits collection, all while being entirely new. It’s not a retread either: the band enters new genre territory on tracks like “Sadie Sorceress” and “Grim Reaper,” which take on a Beastie Boys thump. A document of the first time the band played in the same room following lockdown, Omnium Gatherum kicks off with its strongest song in the 18-minute epic “The Dripping Tap.” It’s got everything: frantic guitar freakouts, soulful hooks, and enough propulsive motion to make such a lengthy track never outstay its welcome. Cook Craig shines on the hazy freak-pop of “The Garden Goblin” while Mackenzie takes needed aim at Rupert Murdoch during the political “Evilest Man.” There are even metal tracks that’d be highlights of PetroDragonic or Rats’ Nest like “Gaia.” While you might take the genre experiments as an indication that this is a mixed-bag, it’s an intentional and unified listening experience. The crown jewel of the band’s recent work.
Favorite tracks: “The Dripping Tap,” “Kepler-22b,” and “Evilest Man”
1. Nonagon Infinity (2016)
The musical equivalent of a Newton’s cradle, King Gizzard’s eighth album Nonagon Infinity is meant to be played on an infinite loop. Each song seamlessly segues into the next so music never stops and neither does the band on these 10 explosive tracks. It’s their breakthrough and the most flawless example of executing a vision in their monstrous and unwieldy discography. The entire thing is propulsive movement at a blitzing pace. From the opener “Robot Stop” to the closer “Road Train,” which masterfully closes the circle in its final seconds, the energy never dissipates for a second. It’s the consensus choice for a reason. While it might feel obvious to give it top billing, the band would not have achieved the cult-like devotion they’ve earned over the past decade without this LP. When you can catch your breath listening to this potent serving of headbanging psych, it’s easy to realize what an achievement this is.
Favorite tracks: “Robot Stop,” “Big Fig Wasp,” and “People Vultures”
King Gizz has always been this monolith to me - like an inside joke I could never quite hang on to. I've been meaning to dive in for years but never actually taken the leap, until now. You've convinced me, so thank you for making this approachable and easily digestible! Time to clear my calendar for a few days...
Epic effort here! A great incentive to dive in - thank you!