Album Review: Phantom Island by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

For their 27th album in 14 years, the most radical thing King Gizzard can do at this point in their career is question its sustainability -- or work with a 24-piece orchestra. On the lush and melancholy Phantom Island, the Melbourne band do both, creating their most vulnerable, intimate record in the process. Hear me out: thematically, Phantom Island is oddly akin to '60s trucker country, where behind every whiskey-fuelled ramble with the boys lies an intense yearning for wives and children down the road, leaving the listener disorientated, wondering whether to raise a glass or cry into one.

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Prolific Australian jam band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard return for their 27th album Phantom Island, with a focus on journeys both metaphorical and literal, as each track plays on themes of being lost and found, wrapped up in an orchestral rock soundscape. The upbeat Deadstick features a crashing pilot contemplating their final moments over campy rock instrumentation, the track's catchy refrain referencing the pilot's lack of control over his aeroplane. Others are even less fortunate, like Aerodynamic's character who, after being struck by lightning, accepts their watery fate, reasoning that the sharks have to eat too.

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'Phantom Island' is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's 27th album 'proper', giving the Aussie outfit a discography to rival the MCU. It's introduced by the title track - a folly-fuelled, jazz-laden jaunt that feels as if one has been dropped into a magical garden wonderland, before erupting into an orchestral powerhouse. The record reveals a tenderness that almost mirrors their 'Paper Mâché Dream Balloon' era, via the loveliness of songs such as 'Lonely Cosmos', with its baroque pop and folk creating a truly winsome wonder.

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