A Review of Every Single King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Album

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Welcome to 2017. On the 24th of February, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard dropped their ninth studio album: Flying Microtonal Banana (FMB). It would be their first of five albums that year. FMB is the band's first major exploration into microtonal music. Usually in western music, we only go up an down by semitones, but on this album the band used specially made microtonal instruments to get quarter tones. You get twenty four tones, instead of only twelve.


Stu with his microtonal guitar. Look at all those frets!

The album was very successful, and was the first KGLW album to chart on the Billboard 200. FMB is just over forty minutes long and consists of nine tracks:

1. Rattlesnake
2. Melting
3. Open Water
4. Sleep Drifter
5. Billabong Valley
6. Anoxia
7. Doom City
8. Nuclear Fusion
9. Flying Microtonal Banana

FMB retains the band's psych roots, but takes them into a new, unexplored territory. It can be a weird listen at first, because these are not sounds that we are used to hearing in music. It feels foreign, and of course it is: the album takes a lot of inspiration from Middle-Eastern music and even includes some instruments from the region. This, along with the microtonality, makes FMB a truly unique listening experience. Keeping in good old KGLW tradition, Billabong valley is a song with some western themes, sung by Ambrose. Nothing on the album goes truly hard, but there isn't really anything super mellow going on either. There is always a bunch of things going on musically and its truly a rewarding listen even just to figure out everything that's going on.

This album definitely takes some getting used to, and I think it grows on me with every listen. I know a lot of people consider this to be the best of the 2017 releases. It isn't mine, but its pretty great. My favourite tracks are Rattlesnake, Melting, Open Water, and Nuclear Fusion.

8/10

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Oh boy. Here we go. On the 23rd of June, 2017, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard dropped their tenth studio album, and second of that year, Murder of the Universe (MOTU). This is one of their most controversial albums (in terms of if you like it or hate it, not like controversial in the bad muh cancel culture way) but I love it. It is the third album in what I call their heavy-psych fantasy trilogy. Out of the trilogy, it is probably the heaviest, and the most fantastical. This is the album where King Gizzard goes full Lizard Wizard. The reason that some people hate it and some people love it is because it features a lot of spoken word sections. Personally, I love this, but it means you really just have to sit down and listen to the album as a whole (or as a section) instead of most albums where you tend to pick the best songs and add them to a playlist.

This forty six minute album technically has twenty one tracks, but its really three long songs/sections. Each section tells its own story, so I'll split up the track-list accordingly:

Chapter 1: A Tale of the Altered Beast
1. A New World
2. Altered Beast I
3. Alter Me I
4. Altered Beast II
5. Alter Me II
6. Altered Beast III
7. Alter Me III
8. Altered Beast IV
9. Life/Death

Chapter 2: The Lord of Lightning vs Balrog
10. Some Context
11. The Reticent Raconteur
12. The Lord of Lightning
13. The Balrog
14. The Floating Fire
15. The Acrid Corpse

Chapter 3: Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe
16. Welcome to an Altered Future
17. Digital Black
18. Han-Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg
19. Soy-Protein Munt Machine
20. Vomit Coffin
21. Murder of the Universe

I won't talk too much about MOTU's story, even if its just an album, I think if you are going to listen to it, it would be cooler if you went in fresh. Just know that I love it, I think it is so fun and as a writer myself it inspires me. As far as the music goes, its just banger after banger. My head is constantly banging while I'm listening to MOTU. Some people may say that they hate that the great music is interrupted by spoken word, and fair enough but I think that is mostly a mindset issue. You can't go into this album for the same experience as a regular album, you have to be going into it as a story with music. I think the spoken word adds a lot to the album, especially in Chapter 3.

This album just scratches an amazing itch for me, as a fantasy writer and a music lover. Its my second favourite album of the 2017 bunch, and I think its almost perfect. My only complaint is that Chapter 1 is a bit too long compared to the other two. My favourite part of the album is Chapter 2: The Lord of Lightning vs Balrog.

9/10

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On the 18th of August, 2017, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their eleventh studio album, and their third of that year: Sketches of Brunswick East (SBE) I'm gonna be honest, I'm not going to have a lot of say about this one. It may be the album of theirs' that I've listened to the least. It isn't one of my favourites, but I feel like in time it could really grow on me. On this album, King Gizzard teams up with Alex Brettin from Mild High Club, and it is an improvisational psych-jazz record. SBE is thirty-seven minutes long and has thirteen songs:

1. Sketches of Brunswick East I
2. Countdown
3. D-Day
4. Tezeta
5. Cranes, Planes, Migraines
6. The Spider and Me
7. Sketches of Brunswick East II
8. Dusk to Dawn on Lygon Street
9. The Book
10. A Journey to (S)hell
11. Rolling Stoned
12. You Can Be Your Silhouette
13. Sketches of Brunswick East III

For me, SBE is most enjoyable at its most calm. Songs like Tezeta, The Spider and Me, Rolling Stoned, and You Can Be Your Silhouette are great songs to just put on while relaxing. They would be perfect balcony, or poolside songs I think. The first three of those are my three favourite songs on this album. Some of the more chaotic songs just aren't hitting me right yet.

I don't have much more to say. Like jazz? Give this one a try. I need to listen to it more, I think it will grow on me with more time.

6/10

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Their best album art, imo. By Jason Galea, as most of them are.

Oh yeah. Its Polygondwanaland time. Their fourth album of the year. Their twelfth studio album. On the 17th of November, 2017, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard dropped Polygondwanaland (PGWL). This 43 minute album combines aspects from all of their past albums to create one epic psychedelic prog-rock fantasy adventure. I call this the post-apocalyptic epilogue to the heavy-psych fantasy trilogy that was I'm In Your Mind Fuzz, Nonagon Infinity, and Murder of the Universe. Its amazing story is spread across ten tracks:

1. Crumbling Castle
2. Polygondwanaland
3. The Castle in the Air
4. Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet
5. Inner Cell
6. Loyalty
7. Horology
8. Tetrachromacy
9. Searching...
10. The Fourth Colour

Let's start with the first track. Crumbling Castle is KGLW's magnum opus. This is their greatest song, and the perfect way to open up this album. Its an almost eleven minute long epic that gives me goosebumps, especially those background vocals singing "Polygondwanaland". The album then calms down a bit and introduces this post-apocalyptic, dinosaur infested world that is left behind after the events of Murder of the Universe. or maybe its a hidden place, somehow protected from the destruction? Either way... If you noticed, the three albums from the heavy-psych fantasy trilogy all have the same castle on their album cover. Then PGWL opens with Crumbling Castle. It then picks back up with the songs Inner Cell, Loyalty, and Horology. Finally our hero and story reach their climax in the last three songs, and the story culminates with literal ascension to godhood in The Fourth Colour.

This album tickles the fantasy writer side of me almost as much as Murder of the Universe, but also exceeds that album by miles, somehow, when it comes to the music. Everything is tight, and the band has perfect attention to detail. There is so much going on, and it feels so nostalgic but also fresh at the same time. If you love the great prog-rock concept albums of the 70s, I think you will like this a lot.

Before I wrap this up, I'd like to gush about one more thing. This album is free. And I mean free. Its under an open source license, and the band provides all the files necessary to make your own version of it. Hundreds exist, literally. People have pressed their own vinyls, made their own album art, and more. There are different mixes, you could really do anything. Polygondwanaland is for the fans, and that is just amazing. Thank you so much to all the guys at King Gizzard, you are truly some of the best in the industry.

This album is amazing. Please listen to it. My favourite songs are Crumbling Castle, Polygondwanaland, Loyalty, and The Fourth Colour, but I obviously love everything here.

10/10

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Just squeaking by as their fifth album of the year, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their thirteenth studio album, Gumboot Soup, on the 31st of December, 2017. While making the other four albums over the course of the year, the band found themselves with a bunch of songs that didn't really fit, so they put them all together on this release. Its forty four minutes long and has eleven songs:

1. Beginner's Luck
2. Greenhouse Heat Death
3. Barefoot Desert
4. Muddy Water
5. Superposition
6. Down the Sink
7. The Great Chain of Being
8. The Last Oasis
9. All Is Known
10. I'm Sleepin' In
11. The Wheel

Its a bit difficult to figure out what to talk about for this album, because due to its nature its a bit all over the place. Basically, if you like their other albums from 2017, this one will be a fun time. It has bangers, it has bops. It has slow songs, it has fast songs. It has aggressive songs, and it has mellow songs. Its really solid all the way through, its pretty impressive for "leftovers". My favourite tracks are Beginner's Luck, Muddy Water, The Great Chain of Being, and The Last Oasis.

8/10

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After releasing five full length albums in 2017, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took 2018 off. They still went on tour, but didn't release any new material. On the 26th of April 2019, they came back with their fourteenth studio album, Fishing for Fishies (FFF). FFF is a departure from their other albums, which while varied mostly had their roots in psychedelic rock. FFF on the other hand, is a boogie/blues rock album about climate change and sustainability. You just know that Ambrose whips the harmonica out a ton on this one. The album is forty two minutes long and has nine songs:

1. Fishing for Fishies
2. Boogieman Sam
3. The Bird Song
4. Plastic Boogie
5. The Cruel Millennial
6. Real's Not Real
7. This Thing
8. Acarine
9. Cyboogie

FFF is bops all the way through. Its about a serious topic, but its just downright fun. The album is packed with rich yet soft sounds, and some of Stu's clearest and most pop-y vocals. This is probably the most accessible KGLW album, not that they are an inaccessible band or anything. Out of all their albums, this is probably the one where the keyboards shine the most and the guitars take a step back, which can be refreshing. FFF is also super catchy, and some of my favorite parts of the album are the hooks. My favourite tracks are Fishing for Fishies, The Bird Song, This Thing, and Cyboogie.

8/10

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Remember how much I gushed about Polygondwanaland? Well that is only my second favourite Gizz album. Here's my favourite. On the 16th of August, 2019, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their fifteenth studio album, Infest the Rats' Nest (ITRN). Its a thrash metal album, and its awesome. This is the album that introduced me to King Gizzard, and it is still my favourite of their albums, even though I barely listen to metal. It would be the final KGLW album to feature Eric Moore as one of the band's two drummers, as he left in 2020 to focus on running his record label, Flightless. ITRN tightly packs nine songs into a quick thirty four minute package:

1. Planet B
2. Mars For The Rich
3. Organ Farmer
4. Superbug
5. Venusian 1
6. Perihelion
7. Venusian 2
8. Self-Immolate
9. Hell

ITRN picks up where Fishing for Fishies left off with its themes of climate change. Planet B warns that the damage we are doing to our planet is permanent and that we don't just have a bunch of planets to work with. There is one planet with a breathable atmosphere in our solar system, there is no "planet B". Although maybe there is, for certain people. Mars For The Rich follows a poor farmer on Earth in a future where Mars has been colonized by humans, but the only people that live there are those who can afford to, while Earth and its citizens suffer. Mars is being terraformed while Earth has been deformed. Organ Farmer is where the album starts to really lean into some future science fantasy shit, which I of course love. The song is about humans being grown in factory farms just to be harvested for their organs, so that rich people can prolong their life. Superbug is a prophetic song about Covid-19. Seriously, its about a virus that makes H1N1 look like a "flop". It never stops, and doesn't give a fuck.

Venusian 1 is where the album really takes a turn for the amazingly fantastical. Its farther in the future, and Earth has become completely inhabitable, perhaps mostly because of the virus. While the rich have taken Mars, those left on Earth decide to head to Venus. The first ship, called Venusian 1 sets off towards the second planet from the sun. The song talks about man and machine working together, as the ship is piloted by an AI while the pilot sleeps. "There is one Planet V". In the next song, Perihelion, the ship strays too close to the glowing beauty of the sun and is burned up. On the next song Venusian 2, the next ship departs for Venus. The ship makes it, although it seems that for some reason, colonization of Venus is not feasible, even with the floating city method that has been hypothesized. The reason is revealed on Self-Immolate: the crew is sick, presumably with the virus. They couldn't escape it, and commit suicide by burning themselves on the surface of Venus.

On the album's final song, the crew find themselves in Hell, where they meet Satan. Seriously, this started with a song about climate change and now we are literally on some DOOM shit. It gets better: Satan recruits the crew, and sends them to Mars colony to "Infest The Rat's Nest". Fucking awesome. Don't forget, while all this crazy science fantasy stuff is going on in the lyrics, the whole album is just banger after banger. There is not a single bad song on here, and everything goes so hard. Superbug is the slowest and longest song, but after that from Venusian 1 onward the rest of the album is seventeen minutes of non stop insanity and I love it.

This is one of my favourite albums of all time. It really is hard to pick favourites, but I guess they are Planet B, Mars for the Rich, Venusian 1, and Perihelion. But it really pains me to leave out any of them. This album is flawless.

10/10

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On the 20th of November, 2020, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their sixteenth studio album, K.G. The album is a successor to their 2017 album Flying Microtonal Banana, and is further exploration into microtonal tuning. The album is forty one minutes long and consists of ten songs:

1. K.G.L.W.
2. Automation
3. Minimum Brain Size
4. Straws in the Wind
5. Some of Us
6. Ontology
7. Intrasport
8. Oddlife
9. Honey
10. The Hungry Wolf of Fate

Compared to Flying Microtonal Banana, K.G. has less middle-eastern influence and features sounds more similar to songs of off other King Gizzard albums like Nonagon Infinity or I'm In Your Mind Fuzz. However the album also has songs like Straws in the Wind which is a bit folksy, and Intrasport, which is a bit disco. To me, this album is a little less interesting than Flying Microtonal Banana, but has individual songs that I like more than anything off of the 2017 album. I don't find myself listening to the whole album but I love my favourite songs, which are Minimum Brain Size, Straws in the Wind, Intrasport, and The Hungry Wolf of Fate. They are all super fun, in their own ways. This isn't the album I would start with for listening to King Gizzard, but if you like their other stuff you will like this one too.

8/10

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On the 25th of February, 2021, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their third microtonal album and direct sequel to K.W., their seventeenth studio album, L.W. The album is forty two minutes long and has nine songs:

1. If Not Now, Then When?
2. O.N.E.
3. Pleura
4. Supreme Ascendency
5. Static Electricity
6. East West Link
7. Ataraxia
8. See Me
9. K.G.L.W.

Note: The song K.G.L.W. is not the same as the song of the same name on K.G.

Like its predecessor, L.W.'s songs all have their own unique sound, just being tied together by their usage of microtonal sounds. There are heavy pysch songs like K.G.L.W., funky songs like If Not Now, Then When?, and Static Electricity, a folk song. With a very similar premise to last year's album, its hard not to directly compare them. In my opinion, the songs are just better on K.G., and this album can feel a bit redundant. Straws in the Wind is just better than Static Electricity, at least to me.

So basically, if you enhjoy K.G., you will get enjoyment out of L.W., but if you are like me, maybe just not as much enjoyment. My favourite tracks off of this one are O.N.E., East West Link, and K.G.L.W.

7/10

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On the 11th of June, 2021, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their eighteenth studio album, Butterfly 3000 (BF3000). It is the band's first pop album, incorporating elements of dance pop, psych pop, and dream pop, and as of writing this it is their most recent studio album. BF3000 is forty three minutes long and has ten songs:

1. Yours
2. Shanghai
3. Dreams
4. Blue Morpho
5. Interior People
6. Catching Smoke
7. 2.02 Killer Year
8. Black Hot Soup
9. Ya Love
10. Butterfly 3000

Butterfly 3000 is such a pleasant surprise. "A rock band, doing a pop album?" you may ask yourself. I know I did when I was first about to listen to it, but boy did it prove me wrong. BF3000 is nothing but bop after bop after bop. This is probably King Gizzard's most fun album to date. Stu says its his favourite album that they've ever done, and I believe him because the boys sound like they are having a lot of fun on this one. The album has such a unique feel within their discography because its built around synths rather than guitars, and features some of the band's softest vocals.

For me, its hard to pick but my favourite tracks are Yours, Dreams, Interior People, and Catching Smoke. I can't help but also give shout-outs to Shanghai and Ya Love, the latter of which is a really cute song that has new-dad Stu singing a message of love for his family. This album is a whole lot of fun, and if you love pop more than rock this is definitely the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard album for you. Really hope to see further exploration of this sound in the future from the boys.

9/10