i just whipped up a new tierlist for all the gizz albums and EPs so i'm gonna run ya through it RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!
ok let's start with the lowest tier: good (yeah that's right i don't think any gizz project is less than good - unless we're including butterfly 3001 lol)
so, my least favourite album (or EP in this case) is anglesea. that's shouldn't be a surprise - it's just 4 songs and they are amongst the simplest and roughest in the entire discography. i do have an appreciation for the extremely lofi garage/punk/surf sound but i play these songs PRETTY RARELY. still, i don't dislike any of the songs and 'summer' is stuck in my head A LOT (even if that's more due to muddy water haha)
willougby's beach is next, the other EP. to be fair, this is a pretty large step up from anglesea. the length is perfect and it has amazing energy! the title track and black tooth hold up immensely well. it's just kind of hard to place willougbhy's above literally anything else.
eyes like the MOTHERFUCKING! sky. such a unique album! not to be too much of a sjw leftist communist snowflake but i can't listen to this album without thinking it's a bit of a white saviour story but it's FAR, FAR, FAR from the worst story about native americans (in my opinion). i only listen to this thing once every couple months but it's always a really fun time. someone turn this into a short film! please!!
12 bar bruise was their debut album and it's probably the most mixed i feel about any gizz project. on one hand some of the songs (uh oh i called mum, sea of trees, cut throat boogie, muckraker, and a couple others) see the band perfect their early garage punk sound, it also has some of my least favourite gizz songs. sam cherry's last shot is just a boring eyes like the sky prototype, high hopes low is pretty meh, and the title track is straight up my least favourite king gizzard song period. like it sucks. i'm sorry stu.
last album in this tier: K.G.
this is almost like 12 bar bruise: many bangers (intrasport, honey, automation, minimum brain size, hungry wolf of fate) but also some meh tracks (straws in the wind, ontology, oddlife) and one song i just straight up don't like (some of us). sorry cookie. the good songs here are easily good enough to put it at the top of this tier, but it's not a great album. it certainly doesn't hold up to it's 2 other microtonal siblings.
OK: NEXT TIER: GREAT ALBUMS
quarters! of course has THE RIVER, one of my favourite songs of all time. a tune that truly never gets old, partly due to the sheer amount of different spins the band has put on it live, and also due to just how damn good it is! however, i think it is the only one of the four tracks that justifies the 10:10 runtime. infinite rise is fine and the other two songs are great! just maybe better if they were only 6-7 minutes. this album used to feel way better to me so hopefully it'll click again in the future. trust in the river!
omnium gatherum is one of a few controversial placings on this list. yes, the dripping tap is a top 5 even top 3 king gizzard song (and it takes up a fourth of the album). yes, it has many other amazing songs like magenta mountain, gaia, and kepler 22b. however it does have one of my least favourite gizzard songs (predator x) and the rest of the track list is good- just not great. the rap songs are fun (grim reaper is fantastic live tbf), ambergris, blame it on the weather, and presumptuous are groovy as shit, but to me it all kind of melts together into a tasty but unmemorable soup. a gumboot soup, if you will (though i think that is the far superior 'mixed bag' album). OG is just too bloated to rank highly for me.
oddments! this one has gained some favour in my mind recently, it used to be my outright least favourite gizz album but no longer! i have come to realize this thing is just packed with pop NUGGETS!! hot take alert: work this time (even disregarding recent live versions) deserves its spot as the most listened gizz song. joey is such an amazing song writer, the song feels so intimate yet out there. stressin', it's got old, sleepwalker, and crying are all great pop songs and shine in their simplicity. vegemite and hot wax are straight fun and homeless man in adidas is one of the most underrated king gizzard songs of all time IMO. when do you ever hear anyone talk about it? NEVER!
ok here is the next placing that i think will prove pretty controversial: changes. a lot of people think this is one of the band's best albums, but i just don't. the first three songs are golden, don't get me wrong. change is an amazing song and i love how it features stu, joey, amby, and cookie all on lead vocals with their own sections. hate dancin is a splendid pop song, and astroturf is such a fun jam with some amazing solo work. however, no body and gondii have fallen to the wayside for me, and although i like exploding suns a lot it's not enough to salvage the 2nd half of the album for me. and come on, having short change be one of the album's only SEVEN songs is a bit of a cop out in my opinion. it's basically just a reprise of the first song :/
ok now for my favourite of the three 'mixed bag' albums (along with omnium and oddments): gumboot soup! this is simply the most diverse and consistently good of this trio of records. 2017 was truly an unmatched year for the band and they were firing on all cylinders for even this final of the five releases that year. beginner's luck is an all time gizz classic, greenhouse heat death could've easily earned a place in FMB above a couple songs, barefoot desert is an underrated slapper, muddy water is a classic, superposition is super unique and weird in a great way, down the sink is funky as fuck and my favourite cookie song (even including his solo material honestly) , the great chain of being is better than both hungry wolf and superbug in my opinion, all is known is one of the best microtonal songs and it isn't even on a microtonal album, and the wheel is a easy sleeper pick for one of the best king gizzard songs. definitely one of the best final songs on any gizz album. last oasis and i'm sleepin in are the only songs i'm not a big fan of. the only reason this isn't higher in the list is that none of the songs, maybe apart from the wheel, are amazing.
butterfly 3000 is great, but i don't like it as much as i used to. dreams is one of my least favourite gizz songs (it should just be an intro section of blue morpho IMO) and much of the album's second half is just fine. however, any album with yours, shanghai, blue morpho, interior people, and catching smoke deserves a significant amount of praise. shanghai is and will always be a special song.
now it's time to really get cooking: the fantastic albums
float along - fill your lungs is one of the most difficult albums to rate for me. after all its title track is one of the best songs the band has ever recorded and head on/pill is an anthem for the ages as well. none of the songs between those two are bad, just not as memorable. every time i listen to the album i'm convinced it's nearly perfect, but upon reflection only the first and last song truly stand out.
paper mache dream balloon is an album i often find myself underestimating. when i haven't heard it in a while i think of it as simple fun but there really is a lot to dig your teeth into. the first four tracks are practically perfect. sense is an amazing pop song (as wolf alice proved) and the title track is a personal favourite and a perfect example of that signature king gizzard lyrical crypticism. bitter boogie is not one of my favourites but i can't deny amby kills it live, and trapdoor feels somewhat out of place but is definitely a banger. time = fate is another one of my favourite cookie songs and most of what i like is not a song i listen to too often but i'm reminded of its supreme quality every time that i do.
i don't even think of sketches of brunswick east as a collection of individual songs, it is simply one uniform whole. many albums have captured the essence of nature and its beauty, but this album perfects the city vibe. it feels bustling yet serene, stressful yet calming. this is the best album to go on a walk on the waterfront to. this is the best album to sit on your balcony and smoke a joint to. it's pretty much perfect, though tezeta is the only song which really stands on its own above the album which is the only reason it doesn't end up higher overall. it may be 15th in the list but if i could only listen to 3 gizz albums for the rest of my life i think sketches would be one of em.
it's strange to think that flying microtonal banana is this low in the list. it's one of the most creative western rock albums of the last 10 years and contains several amazing songs: nuclear fusion, sleep drifter, billabong valley, doom city, anoxia, and open water. it also of course includes rattlesnake, an infamous song that i'm personally not a big fan of but is super important to the community and absolutely slays live. the album feels like it could have been recorded yesterday or 60 years ago and sounds like nothing else i've ever heard. it has this consistent apocalyptic, desert-y sound that ties the whole thing together and keeps it timeless. however, that is also the records downfall (or at least why i don't rate it higher). it can feel a bit same-y at times, and i don't think it takes the microtonal concept far enough.
fishing for fishies is such an interesting album. it somehow feels cohesive but it's hard to nail down what makes it cohesive. other than heavy use of harmonica it's difficult to say what ties the album together. regardless, it works. there isn't a single song here that doesn't nail what it's going for: the title track is distilled from pure serotonin, boogieman sam is one of the most fun songs the band has ever released, the bird song is the greatest children's nursery rhyme ever written ;), plastic boogie is a next level banger that uses its simplicity as its greatest strength in a sea of complicated gizzard songs, the cruel millennial features some of amby's best ever harmonica paying, real's not real is an extremely underrated banger, this thing is one of joey's' best songs and a crowd favourite for a reason, acarine is one of the greatest misdirections in music history, and cyboogie is the perfect outro to this weird gem of a record (if maybe a little long for my taste). why isn't it higher? idk everything else left in this list is pretty much perfect it has some tough competition. it basically just comes down to personal taste!
whenever i see a tierlist posted in the gizz subreddit or on gizz twitter i am saddened because more likely than not, made in timeland is at the very bottom. multiple times i have seen people refuse to rate or rank it just because 'it's timeland'. yes okay, it was made just to be intermission music for the band's marathon shows but it is so much more than that! it is a super unique blend of psychedelia and dance music that feels stranded between two time periods, switching back and forth with some of the best transitions in gizzstory. it's like a mosaic of beautiful sounds, all very different but blended together with expertise. smoke & mirrors live, please. i beg you
L.W. is my favourite of the microtonal trilogy. it uses microtones far better than FMB did, and has a much more consistent tracklist than its sister K.G. The first three tracks are practically perfect. If Not Now Then When? opens the album with some amazing noise before settling into a super unique funky groove, O.N.E. is simple but executed perfectly (that guitar solo should be longer tho...) and pleura is straight up my favourite microtonal king gizzard song. its lyrics are catchy, fantastical, and politically charged all at once. supreme ascendancy is a really cool pseudo-predecessor to butterfly 3000. static electricity and east west link are both a bit folksy but each have some huuuge fuzzy sections. ataraxia isn't one of my favourite joey songs but c'mon all of his shit slaps. see me is just fine but it's better than some of the weaker songs off of K.G. And finally, K.G.L.W. (outro) is one of if not the heaviest song that king gizzard have ever released, being a true slice of DOOM METAL. i mean for fuck's sake, joey is credited with "'MRI MACHINE, HYDRAULIC HAMMER, DRAWBRIDGE, CHAINSAW, NAIL GUN, and ANGLE GRINDER on this fucking song. like. WHAT!!?? cookie is also credited with "hammer and anvil" i mean c'mon that is just fucking legendary stuff.
PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is a mouthful. it's also a really good album. while perhaps lacking in the intense raw energy that infest the rats' nest has, petrodragonic apocalypse makes up for that with the sheer silliness of its narrative, rivalling that of murder of the universe. humans burn oil leading to apocalyptic storms. witches convene to cast a spell to stop the storm, only to be interrupted by their pet cat causing their other pet, a meagre skink, to be turned into a fearsome dragon which then destroys the earth and even the international space station. this album is somehow three of my favourite albums (polygondwanaland, rats nest, and murder of the universe) all put together but yet it ranks below the three of them. i think it's just because the album is so exhausting to listen to. it is a near constant barrage of loud, heavy, complicated guitar parts and yelled vocals which go extremely hard in the moment but can leave you fatigued.
now to the penultimate tier: the AMAZING albums
laminated denim somehow sneaked it's way to this second highest tier despite it feeling like a bit of an 'extra' album, releasing just 5 days after ice death. it's just pretty much perfect: two songs, both fifteen minute long jams, both amazing. the land before timeland takes a bit to get going but the 2nd half of the song is up there with all the gizzard greats. and then there is hypertension. the song is constantly shifting, before you ever get bored of one section of the jam the band has already moved onto something different and better. the song's final 3 or 4 minutes are a highlight of the entire discography and the refrain will literally never leave your brain. however, i can't really put the album any higher for the same reason it's go good: it is just two long jams, and they don't have a whole lot of lyrical substance (or are at least among the most cryptically written king gizzard songs). still, don't let yourself underestimate this one. laminated denim is a seriously good album
when petrodragonic apocalypse came out i was sure that king gizzard had bested their other metal album, infest the rats' nets, but now i'm not so sure. rats nest has this element of raw, punk energy that, to be fair, pda isn't aiming for but still feels missing. pretty much every day, i am angry at the world, or at least its people and rats nest is the PERFECT album for that feeling. out of all the band's albums, this one probably has the most emotion poured into it as stu screams about dying ecosystems and unstoppable diseases, unearthed by climate change and ravaging humanity. hell is probably the best outro of any king gizzard album, seeing the album's protagonists given a new mission after death: hunt down and kill those who ruined earth and fled to mars. again this album is just exploding with angst and anger and energy yet it's fun and lighthearted and it just never gets old. SELF! IMM! O! LATE!
nonagon infinity opens the door. also, it's probably the band's most important contribution to modern rock music and remains their most critically acclaimed album. it's pretty much perfect, not a single weak track, every song feels like its own unique piece despite the musical motifs that pop up again and again and keep the album feeling cohesive and aid in it's infinite concept. this is another album where its greatest strength is also its weakness. nonagon is cohesive by nature, it is basically one long song after all, and can therefore feel same-y after a while. it's (almost, love you mr. beat) unrelenting energy is amazing when you are in the mood but can otherwise leave you feeling exhausted. nonagon infinity is pretty much a perfect album and THE king gizzard album, it's just not my personal favourite.
ice, death, planets, lungs, mushrooms and lava is an amazing album with a nearly perfect tracklist (gliese 710 is the only song i don't absolutely love) but more than that, it is the vehicle for the best live rock music being played anywhere in the world right now. ice v, lava, iron lung, and ESPECIALLY FUCKING MAGMA are some of gizz's best live songs due to their loose jammy nature. the other songs haven't been played live yet, but mycelium is super underrated and a song i have grown to love and hell's itch is my favourite on the album when it come to just the studio version. the album becomes even more remarkable when you learn how it was made: the band jammed for hours each day, later editing their hours of improvised music down into seven songs (each in one of the greek modes) and coming up with the lyrics in a shared google doc. it's jazzy, it's jammy, it's hard, its soft, it's extremely danceable and it's super face melting. magma live at red rocks '23 is simply one of the most insane things you will ever hear. just look how much fun they are having! cavs is smiling wide the whole time and stu is literally writhing around on the ground while playing guitar at one point. i love listening to the album because of the greek modes concept. the song begins with the upbeat, happy (if you dont pay attention to lyrics) mycelium and descends song by song until gliese 710 which feels like the world is collapsing down around you. if you just listened to those songs back to back it would feel so disjointed but going from song to song on the album it feels so natural. fuck i just love this thing, the only reason it isn't higher is because it is being a bit carried by live versions which i guesssssssssss don't really count.......
TOP THREE TIME: THE PEAK ALBUMS
murder of the universe used to be my favourite king gizzard album so it has fallen a bit but its still one of my favourite albums of all time and basically perfect. i've talked about this album so much i don't even really feel like writing that much but it's just such a unique album with its blend of noisy, unrelenting garage rock and fantasy story narration. the whole album is cohesive yet each of the three chapters feels extremely unique. they could easily feel like rehashes of the same ideas but they don't. murder of the universe is brutal, noisy, aggressive, ugly, and fun like no other album. i haven't been in the mood for it very often recently but it'll always have a special place in my heart.
i feel much the same about polygondwanaland. it's hard to say more than it's a perfect blend of prog, space rock, and psychedelia. it's timeless, fantastical, and doesn't contain a single weak song or even section. crumbling castle is their greatest song, the horology suite would take that spot if it counted as one song, and the fourth colour is perhaps the band's greatest outro track. the three suites sound totally different (but yet again, cohesive as a whole) and somehow aren't outshone by crumbling castle.
and finally the newcomer to the top tier: i'm in your mind fuzz. i always thought this album was a bit overrated, a classic for sure but didn't hold up to their new albums. then recently, it clicked. the mind fuzz medley is one of the most iconic gizz songs for a reason. it seems so simple but somehow always stays fresh despite it's repetitive nature. empty is one of the most heartfelt, emotional songs stu has ever written and resonates particularly well with me. hot water has always been a song i liked but has recently become a MASSIVE favourite. the bass and flute combine to create such an ethereal soundscape while the cryptic, simple lyrics stay burned in my mind fuzz. am i in heaven? is up there with the dripping tap and gamma knife for "the most king gizzard king gizzard song" and will never get old, the chorus is basically always stuck in my head and the song makes me emotional almost every time. slow jam 1 is simply sexy, and satan speeds up is a personal favourite due to those FAT guitars and flute. i think the flute is actually the key to this album's success. not that it's the only gizz album to feature flute but it fits so well here even if on the surface it maybe shouldn't just based on the nature of the music. you don't often think of flute when you think of garage rock. her & i (slow jam 2) is one of the sweetest love songs that stu has written and it's jammy nature leads it to be an amazing intro and unique to this point in their career. i'm in your mind fuzz is probably the most well rounded king gizzard album, it all feels cohesive but also switches between so many different vibes and energy levels. there are chill songs here, unrelenting bangers, complicated songs, and simple songs. it also feels like king gizzard at their hungriest; stu is probably at his best here, vocally speaking. to put it into one sentence, i'm in your mind fuzz has everything a king gizzard albums needs, and nothing it doesn't. and that's why it is my current favourite.
shit that took so long to write i'm barely even drunk anymore
anyways, ty for reading or at least hitting that heart button so i can pretend you read the whole thing despite it probably being unreadable due to, well, all the drunken rambling
xoxo tommy