Album Review: Infest the Rats' Nest by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have dabbled in heavy metal before; their masterpiece Nonagon Infinity was metal adjacent, and other bits here and there across the group's expansive and ever-growing catalog have hinted at their love for pummeling rhythms, massed guitar riffing, and fantastical lyrical conceits. On 2019's Infest the Rat's Nest, the band go full metal. Often working in a small version of the band under the direction of vocalist/guitarist Stu Mackenzie, they've made a heavy-as-molten-lead song cycle about the death of Earth and the colonization of nearby planets by those who can afford it.

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Melbourne, Australia-based psychedelic rock monarchs King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard release their second album of 2019; Infest the Rats' Nest contains more hardcore potency than the more lighthearted, bluesy album, Fishing for Fishies.   This latest addition to the group's ever-growing discography sounds more like Metallica than they ever have before. The concept album explores current ecological issues, and is set in a near-future post-apocalypse.   Fast-paced metal jams kick off the first half of the album, with warping ….

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After reviewing the sweet but placid Fishing For Fishies back in May, I concluded my write up by calling for Melbourne's King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard to expand upon the thrilling thrash metal surprise of their then-new single 'Planet B'. Without fail, Stu MacKenzie and the gang have delivered the goods in typical King Gizz fashion by diving down a hellish rabbit hole that seemed like an inevitable destination for a band with a name like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, to begin with. Stepping back from my own fandom and viewing the Aussie septet's ever-growing discography (15 records and counting) from afar, it's hard to deny that their interpretations of various musical styles are rather surface level.

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Heavy metal demands true devotion. It disdains the hipster tourist; it maintains purity through its own antifa(lse metal) movement; it requires that at least 85 percent of your wardrobe be given over to black band t-shirts. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, on the other hand, are non-commital by nature--the ever-mutating Aussie psych-rock outfit are synonymous with impulsive aesthetic shifts, resulting in a deep, frequently updated discography in which no two albums sound alike.

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The ability to surprise is a valuable commodity, one too often in short supply. Enter King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, combining one of the best names in music with a prodigious work ethic and an unerring knack for leftfield diversions. About the only thing that can be guaranteed with this oddball Australian seven-piece is that it's hard to tell what each record is going to bring.

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The Lowdown: Aussie psych rock act King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five albums in 2017 with each one managing to be in a completely different genre and style. The feat further cemented their reputation for being restlessly prolific and experimental. For a band also known for acting like clockwork when it comes to releasing new records, last year's lack of an album sticks out as an anomaly.

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Metalheads, meet King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: a seven-man psychedelic Aussie outfit who have achieved international success thanks to their incendiary live shows and ridiculous work ethic. Since their formation in 2010 they've managed to release 14 studio albums (five of them in 2017 alone), including a Red Dead Redemption-inspired foray into spaghetti western music, a krautrock exploration of the microtonal variations found in non-western music musical notation, an album that can be looped infinitely, a jazz record, a folk record, and plenty of other madcap experiments. They've now decided to record a thrash metal album, because you don't name your band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard without having a "Screw it, why the hell not?" mind-set.

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