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

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2022 Tommy here. I don't like this review. It was very low effort and rushed. I am working on a very long and detailed redux but its gonna take a few months. I'm not gonna delete this one but I think its pretty cringe!!




King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (KGLW) is an Australian rock band from Melbourne. After listening to them casually since they released Infest The Rat's Nest in 2019, I decided to take the plunge and binge-listen to their discography a little over a week ago. Over the course of just a couple days they shot all the way up to perhaps my second favourite band of all time. The band formed in 2010 with seven members:

1. Stu Mackenzie is the front man of the band and its lead vocalist. He is one of the band's three guitar players, but also picks up other instruments depending on the song.
2. Ambrose Kenny-Smith also does a lot of vocals, along with playing keyboard and his iconic harmonica. Dude plays harmonica on their metal album, what a god.
3. Cook Craig is another of KGLW's guitar players, but also does some vocals, as well as pick up other instruments when needed.
4. Joey Walker is the final of the band's guitar players. Would it surprise you at this point if I told you he also does some vocals and picks up other instruments as well?
5. Lucas Harwood is the band's bass player, and also plays the keyboard.
6. Michael Cavanagh (Cavs) is King Gizzard's drummer.
7. Eric Moore used to be the band's second drummer but left the band in 2020 to focus on running his record label, Flightless.


From left to right: Cavs, Cook, Lucas, Eric, Stu, Joey, and Ambrose.

King Gizzard is known for having a huge discography in a relatively short period of time. Since 2010 they've release two EPs and eighteen studio albums, including five albums in 2017 alone. In this series of reviews I will be reviewing one of their EPs, Willoughby's Beach, and all eighteen of their albums. The reviews won't be super in depth because I want to get them done just in the next few hours (edit, it took longer than that lol), but they should give you a general idea of what I think about them and if you would like them. At the very end, I'll round it out with my top five albums and my top ten-fifteen songs. Enjoy!

Oh, here before you start, here is just a quick list of all their albums and their genres. This way you can skip to something that interests you.

Willoughby's Beach - Garage Rock
12 Bar Bruise - Garage Rock
Eyes Like The Sky - Western Audio-book
Float Along - Fill Your Lungs - Psychedelic Rock
Oddments - Psychedelic Rock
I'm In Your Mind Fuzz - Heavy Psych
Quarters! - Psychedelic Rock
Paper Mâché Dream Balloon - Folk/Psych
Nonagon Infinity - Heavy Psych
Flying Microtonal Banana - Middle-Eastern Microtonal Rock
Murder of the Universe - Heavy Psych Audio-book
Sketches of Brunswick East - Psych Jazz Rock
Polygondwanaland - Prog Rock
Gumboot Soup - Psychedelic Rock
Fishing for Fishies - Blues/Boogie Rock
Infest The Rat's Nest - Thrash Metal
K.G. - Microtonal Rock
L.W. - Microtonal Rock
Butterfly 3000 - Psych Pop/Dream Pop

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The first "album" I'll be reviewing is the band's second EP, Willoughby's Beach (WB). I would review their first EP, Anglesea, but it isn't on Spotify and I'm lazy. WB was released on the 21st of October in 2011, and is a garage rock EP. Its the most casual and simplistic of the releases that I'll be reviewing here, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The band keeps it loose and fun over WB's nine tracks, which are:

1. Danger $$$
2. Black Tooth
3. Lunch Meat
4. Crookedile
5. Let It Bleed
6. Dead-Beat
7. Dustbin Fletcher
8. Stoned Mullet
9. Willoughby's Beach

The whole thing flies by in just over twenty minutes, and packs that short runtime full of fun and memorable hooks. The first that comes to mind is the title track's: "Just because I like you / It doesn't mean I like you". Listening to Willoughby's Beach really feels like how I imagine the recording process was like, in that it just sounds like hanging with friends and having some good, simple fun. However, as I said the album is just pretty basic and simple compared to the rest of their stuff, so I don't find myself returning to it. My favourite tracks are Crookedile, Stoned Mullet, and Willoughby's Beach.

6/10

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King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard followed up Willoughby's Beach with their debut studio album, 12 Bar Bruise (12BB), on the 7th of September, 2012. Like the EP before it, 12BB is a relatively short but fun garage rock album. Its thirty four minute runtime comes in a package of twelve tracks, which are:

1. Elbow
2. Muckraker
3. Nein
4. 12 Bar Bruise
5. Garage Liddiard
6. Sam Cherry's Last Shot
7. High Hopes Low
8. Cut Throat Boogie
9. Bloody Ripper
10. Uh Oh I Called Mum
11. Sea of Trees
12. Footy Footy

12BB is like an evolved version of Willoughby's Beach. It is still loose and fun, but has a lot more lyrical substance. While WB was mostly just filled with catchy hooks, 12BB has songs about alcohol abuse, suicide, and on Cut Throat Boogie, Ambrose sings about the time he almost died at a party when he was 16. The album even includes a western-themed spoken word track, Sam Cherry's Last Shot. I think that 12 Bar Bruise was a step in the right direction for King Gizzard, as the lyrics make the songs on this album much more appealing than the simplicity of the previous release. Compared to Willoughby's Beach, I regularly come back to songs like Muckraker, Cut Throat Boogie, and Sea of Trees, which are my three favourites on this one.

7/10

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Hmm, how do I begin with this one. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their second studio album on the 22nd of February, 2013, their first of two albums that year. Remember how I mentioned that 12 Bar Bruise had a western-themed spoken word piece on it? Well, welcome to Eyes Like The Sky, which I can only describe as a half-an-hour long audio-book short story western, with the band providing a backing track for the whole thing. There are sections where the music takes the focus, but it really is like listening to an audio-book. Stu says that the album was inspired by Red Dead Redemption.

The story, which was written and performed by Ambrose's father Broderick Smith, follows Eyes Like The Sky, a white man that was raised by Native Americans around the time of the American Civil War. Eyes Like The Sky takes his revenge after his family was slaughtered. I won't spoil more than that, but I actually had a lot of fun listening to the story the first time I heard it.

Its sort of hard to rate this album, because its not he kind of release where you have some favourite songs and you add them to a playlist. You really just have to sit down and listen to it every once and a while when you are in the mood for it. That being said, my favourite stretch of the story falls across tracks 6-8: Fort Whipple, The God Man's Goat Lust, and The Killing Ground.

6.5/10

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On the 27th of September, 2013, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their second album of that year, Float Along - Fill Your Lungs (FAFYL). Compared to their previous records (Eyes Like The Sky not included), FAFYL movies away from garage rock, firmly into psychadelic rock territory. FAFYL has eight tracks and is just over forty minutes long. The track are as follows:

1. Head On/Pill
2. I'm Not a Man Unless I Have A Woman
3. God Is Calling Me Back Home
4. 30 Past 7
5. Let Me Mend The Past
6. Mystery Jack
7. Pop In My Step
8. Float Along - Fill Your Lungs

The album opens with Head On/Pill, a sixteen minute long, two part psychedelic journey. The first part of the song, Head On is pretty mellow, but the song ramps up as it transitions into the second part, Pill. The song is essentially about taking the wrong drugs and going on a crazy trip. The next track, I'm Not a Man Unless I Have A Woman, is almost like a psychedelic R&B song which features back and forth vocals between Stu, and Ambrose who is acting as the woman in this scenario. God Is Calling Me Back Home is like a mix of this new psychedelic sound with the garage rock sound of previous records, and 30 Past 7 is a fun, mellow track about not being a morning person. The title track closes the album with an instrumental section which fades away as it repeats over the course of a few minutes, which raps up this album perfectly.

For me, FAFYL is a big improvement over the band's first few records, but that might just be a genre thing for me. Its not super similar, but I think if you like some of Tame Impala's earlier albums like InnerSpeaker , you will enjoy this album. My favourite tracks are Head On/Pill, I'm Not a Man Unless I Have A Woman, God Is Calling Me Back Home, and Float Along - Fill Your Lungs.

8/10

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King Gizz's fourth studio album, Oddments, came on the 7th of March, 2014. This album is a variation on their psychedelic sound from FAFYL, and probably has the clearest vocals of any KGLW album thus far. Its 5th track, Work This Time, is still their most popular song on Spotify with around 29 million plays. Oddments is just over half an hour long and has twelve tracks:

1. Alluda Majaka
2. Stressin'
3. Vegemite
4. It's Got Old
5. Work This Time
6. ABABCd.
7. Sleepwalker
8. Hot Wax
9. Crying
10. Pipe-Dream
11. Homeless Man In Addidas
12. Oddments

Compared to their past records, Oddments has a lot of slow, melodic tracks like Work This Time, Sleepwalker, and Crying. These three tracks also happen to be my favourite from this album. Funnily enough because its their most popular song, Work This Time is one of the few times that guitarist Joey has done the lead vocals for a KGLW song. The album also has its fast cuts, like ABABCd. which feels like an evolution of the songs from Willoughby's Beach, except literally on seventeen seconds long, which kinda sucks. The album is also opened and closed by a pair of fun instrumental tracks, and again, I wish that closing track was a bit longer, personally. Oddments is one of those albums where I really like the songs that I like, but I don't really listen to the other ones.

7.5/10

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On Halloween day of 2014, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their fifth studio album, I'm In Your Mind Fuzz (IIYMF). The album is the first album in what I'll call their hard-psych fantasy trilogy. More on that in later reviews. IIYMF sees the band dip their toes into dark fantasy themes for the first time, something that will become a staple of their music in the future. As you may have guessed from the title, this album delves into themes of mind control on many of its songs. Speaking of songs, this forty two minute album has ten of them:

1. I'm In Your Mind
2. I'm Not In Your Mind
3. Cellophane
4. I'm In Your Mind Fuzz
5. Empty
6. Hot Water
7. Am I in Heaven?
8. Slow Jam 1
9. Satan Speeds Up
10. Her and I (Slow Jam 2)

The album begins with the fast and upbeat I'm In Your Mind, but also features several more mellow, psychedelic tracks like Empty, Hot Water, and Slow Jam 1. In general, the album combines qualities from albums like Float Along - Fill Your Lungs and 12 Bar Bruise. A lot of people really love this album, but for me it is simply an evolution of past sounds, and not a true new step in a different direction like many of their albums since this one have been. I don't think its leans enough into its fantasy story-telling elements, but IIYMF is definitely the culmination and climax of King Gizzard's early discography. My favourite tracks are I'm In Your Mind, Cellophane, and Am I in Heaven?

8/10

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On the 12th of May, 2015, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard dropped their sixth studio album, Quarters!. To me, this is the first move in KGLW's discography that really excited me when I listened through it the first time. While retaining a lot of psychedelic qualities from Float Along - Fill Your Lungs, this record also brings some jazz to the table. Quarters! also presents the first time that the band plays with the structure of the album in a creative way. The album is just over forty minutes long, but is only four songs, each exactly ten minutes and ten seconds long:

1. The River
2. Infinite Rise
3. God Is in the Rhythm
4. Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer

This album is just so much damn fun. Each song is like its own magical journey, each with their own chapters or sections. The River ebbs and flows between relaxed and upbeat, much like, well, a river. Infinite Rise may be my least favourite of the four songs, but I love its concept. The song makes use of a Shepard Tone, an auditory illusion that makes it seem like the pitch is constantly ascending but it never actually gets any higher. I don't even know how to describe God Is in the Rhythm, but this song makes me so happy to listen to, its easily my favourite of the four.

Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer is probably the most psychedelic track on Quarters!, but also definitely has some prog-rock vibes. The whole album is pretty proggy actually, thats probably why I like it so much. I just love this album, I love it concept and I love it in practice as well. Probably the first King Gizzard album I truly loved upon hearing it. I do maybe wish there was some more lyrical content, but I get that maybe that wouldn't fit with the psychy-ethereal vibe that this has going on. Oh well!

8.5/10

Side note, this is one of my favourite album covers in the band's entire discography, I love how the four quarters (ha, get it) flow into each other. Its maybe just second behind Polygondwanaland.

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Following Quarters!, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard released their seventh studio album, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon (PMDB) on the 13th of November, 2015. The album is a completely acoustic take on psychedelic rock, you could perhaps call it folk-psych? The thirty-three minute album has twelve tracks:

1. Sense
2. Bone
3. Dirt
4. Paper Mâché Dream Balloon
5. Trapdoor
6. Cold Cadaver
7. The Bitter Boogie
8. N.G.R.I. (Bloodstain)
9. Time = Fate
10. Time = $$$
11. Most of What I Like
12. Paper Mâché

The album opens with the band's second most played song on Spotify, Sense. This song is so chill and laid back, and its groove is infectious. The same can be said about the whole album, really. Some of the songs are more upbeat, but all of PMDB is like floating on a cloud or flying through the sky in a dream. The acoustic guitars, harmonica, and flutes make the whole record sound ethereal and angelic. The exception is probably the song Trapdoor, which is as close as the album gets to something like I'm In Your Mind Fuzz, while still having that all-acoustic sound. The album also takes some of the western themes from Eyes Like The Sky on the harmonica filled track The Bitter Boogie. I don't know if there is much more I can say really, this album is just filled to the brim with bop after bop after bop. Its hard to pick, but I think my favourite tracks are Sense, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon, The Bitter Boogie, and N.G.R.I. (Bloodstain).

8.5/10

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On the 29th of April, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard dropped their eighth studio album, Nonagon Infinity (NI). In my opinion, this is the first of the band's real concept albums, and follows I'm In Your Mind Fuzz as the second album in their hard-psych fantasy trilogy. This was really their breakout album, and it saw widespread critical acclaim. A lot of the acclaim was focused on NI's gimmick. Not only do all the songs flow into each other seamlessly, but the last track on the album flows back into the first one, making the whole album like one infinitely repeating song. Speaking of songs, the album is forty one minutes long with nine songs:

1. Robot Stop
2. Big Fig Wasp
3. Gamma Knife
4. People-Vultures
5. Mr. Beat
6. Evil Death Roll
7. Invisible Face
8. Wah Wah
9. Road Train

I really have to talk about NI like it is one big song. Throughout the album, King Gizzard is constantly making lyrical and musical callbacks to previous sections, and most of the album has one concise and consistent sound. First I'll start with a fun fact: Not only does the song People-Vultures flow into Mr. Beat, it also flows into the Lord of Lightning vs Balrog saga that forms part of Murder of the Universe, an album that came out a year after NI. This whole album is just non-stop head banging fun, and also shows the band going a little deeper into the fantasy storytelling aspect of their music. The album mentions harpies, cyborg transformation, and Satan. They aren't yet full wizard, but they are getting there. But mostly, this album is just down right catchy and head bangin' good. This shit just goes hard man. The hooks are constantly stuck in my head, I swear I've paced the hallway of my apartment muttering "Gamma Knife!" over and over again in the middle of the night. Even Wah Wah's hook is catchy, and its literally just the word "Wah", over and over again. Not to mention Mr. Beat, which is the most different section of the album, letting the keyboards shine a lot more. And once again that chorus! Oh man, and its somehow not even in my top four favourite songs of the album.

This album is just fantastic. I don't know what to complain about, and the only reason I'm not giving it a perfect score is because there are a couple KGLW albums I like more, somehow. My favourite tracks off of NI, for right now at least, are Gamma Knife, People-Vultures, Wah Wah, and Road Train.

9.5/10