Chunky Shrapnel is a 96-minute feature film that captures Australia’s finest loopy psych trailblazers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard on their 2019 European tour: sweat, adrenalin glands bursting, dual drummers, extended wig-outs, noodle jams, demented time signatures, squeaky-high vocal harmonies… the works.
As lead Gizzard Stu Mackenzie puts it: “It was fun and funny and wild and weird”.
To complement its release there’s also a 16-track double LP – a full-on freak-out, comprised of songs spanning the collective’s fertile career (15 studio albums in eight years).
There’s the Jeff Wayne (War Of The Worlds)-esque Murder Of The Universe, live in Utrecht. There’s the Roxy Music-esque Let Me Mend The Past, live in Madrid.
Everywhere there’s the perky Brubeck-style guitar line of The River (from 2015’s Quarters!) Overall it’s a psychedelic delight, best summed up by the tumultuous closing, 19-minute long melee A Brief History Of Planet Earth, live in London, Berlin, Utrecht And Barcelona. Well yes, of course.
