Release Date: Nov 20, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Neo-Prog
Record label: Universal
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Ten years since their formation, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are back with yet another heavyweight entry into their ever-growing discography. Their sixteenth studio album, K.G., subtitled Explorations into Microtonal Tuning, Volume 2, fits comfortably into the Melbourne outfit’s oeuvre. K.G. is the closest thing to a self-titled album we’ll ever get from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
Over a ten-year span spent releasing an album every few weeks (or so it seemed) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard never repeated themselves, always pushing forward and trying new things whether it was lengthy jazz excursions, gloom-and-doom synth prog, or thundering thrash metal. That changed some on 2020's K.G., where the band revisit the approach used on Flying Microtonal Banana, the group's 2017 album built around the avant-garde sounds of their custom-made guitars and altered instruments. Stuck in their various homes during the global pandemic, the band gravitated toward the unique instruments and built a batch of songs using their non-Western tunings and tones.
Prolific psych-roch shapeshifters, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have released their 16th studio album, marking 10 years as an active band. K. G.
What is this now, album number 16 from King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard? Released as this explosive bin fire of a year finally pulls down the shutters, it's been a pretty fallow year for the Melbourne garage rockers, what with them only managing to put out six live albums, a two volume demos collection and now this long player. Apparently they're in the grip of what might be classified as their 'Desert Rock' period, and its evident that someone in the band has been listening to a bunch of Omar Souleyman, Altin Gün and some of those fantastic Finders Keepers compilations of Turkish psych, and decided they should follow suit. One of the more admirable qualities of the band has been their inclination to always incorporate new genres into their mix, whether it be the progressive jazz fusion noodling that marked their creative highpoint, 2015's brilliant Quarters, or the trash metal wrath incurred on last year’s rabid Infest The Rat's Nest.
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