King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland album review

Prolific psych squad favour quantity over quality

Cover art for King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland

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This is undiluted prog. It’s full of the sort of sprawling noodling and concentric riffs and random key and pace changes that you’d expect from King Crimson and Yes (minus the pomp). The opening 11-minute Crumbling Castle grabs a groove and does not let go.

Trouble is, how much of this can folk stand? The Perth, Australia band have released 12 albums since September 2012 – four in 2017 alone. These range from psych-jazz to surf pop to free-form jams to space rock. Some moments are sublime (2015’s Quarters!). Some moments are full-on weird (2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz). And some moments… well, some moments you wish for a bit of quality control and that they’d remember to turn off the recording equipment when they leave the studio. This, of course, is anathema to the whole Gizzard credo, though – and so, good on ’em.

This is a set of unlistenable, wigged-out, repetitive, directionless grooves in the main, but we love ’em anyway.

Everett True

Everett True started life as The Legend!, publishing the fanzine of that name and contributing to NME. Subsequently he wrote for some years for Melody Maker, for whom he wrote seminal pieces about Nirvana and others. He was the co-founder with photographer Steve Gullick of Careless Talk Costs Lives, a deliberately short-lived publication designed to be the antidote to the established UK music magazines.