King Gizzard and The Wizard Lizard cast psychedelic net wide on 20th album

Aussie cosmonauts King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard hit melodious peak with freakouts and chill-outs on Omnium Gatherum

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Omnium Gatherum cover art
(Image: © KGLW)

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While it’s easy to admire the sheer chutzpah of King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard opening their twentieth album in 10 years with the 18-minute epic The Dripping Tap, they become that much more easy to love once the song’s immediate accessibility becomes instantly apparent. 

To their detractors they’ve always been erratic at best, but here they ramp up the melodicism and play with all the gusto of musicians who have been separated for far too long. 

While heavy nuggets Gaia and Predator X chug with both purpose and a sense of menace, the mellow grooves of Magenta Mountain and The Garden Goblin find the band exploring vistas that simultaneously soothe and expand the mind. 

Indeed, the electric piano and pumping bass at the heart of Presumptuous evoke an endless summer of cloudless skies. Crucially, this album casts its psychedelic net wide to broaden their appeal.

Julian Marszalek

Julian Marszalek is the former Reviews Editor of The Blues Magazine. He has written about music for Music365, Yahoo! Music, The Quietus, The Guardian, NME and Shindig! among many others. As the Deputy Online News Editor at Xfm he revealed exclusively that Nick Cave’s second novel was on the way. During his two-decade career, he’s interviewed the likes of Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne, and has been ranted at by John Lydon. He’s also in the select group of music journalists to have actually got on with Lou Reed. Marszalek taught music journalism at Middlesex University and co-ran the genre-fluid Stow Festival in Walthamstow for six years.