Album Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity

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sychedelic rock is a tree with many branches, man. Many think of Pink Floyd’s cosmic atmospheres and soaring leads; sound that floats around your brain as you lie back on the grass, headphones in, and the clouds play out in a circus scene above you. Brick in the Wall turns into Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The left-field melancholy of The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin becomes the neo-psych-pop of Tame Impala’s Lonerism. Things are feeling very laid back indeed. And then comes on Nonagon Infinity by a band called Kind Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Stereotypically, the psychedelic genre is fuelled by some kind of hallucinogenic drug such as LSD. Nonagon Infinity is fuelled by… well… kerosene-based exothermal cocaine.

To give a touch of context, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are a psychedelic rock band from Melbourne with a fuzzy, garage style of delivery, prolific output rate and, as of their last few records, a proclivity for doing things a bit differently. After decent critical acclaim for their fifth album I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, the seven-piece put out Quarters! which consisted of 4 ten-minute-long tracks – structurally creative and brimming with trippy guitar lines and surprisingly succinct melodies. Following that, they released the “concept-less” Paper Mâche Dream Balloon, an all-acoustic album (yeah, I know!) designed as a musical “palette cleanser”. Without electronic instruments, they layered quieter sonics to fill the space, creating an album reminiscent of 60s organic, “lulling about in a field” ballads that showcased “the Wizard’s” nifty songwriting. So what to do next?

Cue Nonagon Infinity, a hurricane of nine energetic songs, track-after-track bursting forth like runaway freight trains. Inspired by the furious frenetics of heavy metal masters Motörhead, this album hits harder than their previous work; its energy is astonishing and, quite frankly, exhilarating.

Some clever conceptual tricks lift the album above a straight-up, balls-out frenzy. First and foremost, the nine tracks on the album have been specially designed to flow into one another perfectly, so that – you guessed it – you can loop and listen to it infinitely, even though frontman Stu Mackenzie is admittedly sure that no one will do this. Although it seems like a bit of a gimmick, it makes sense in light of a couple of other things. Each song is not, for example, musically exclusive, but an amalgamation of riffs and sequences from the other songs, characterised by an underlying core. The result is beautifully confusing, to the point where track-listing no longer really matters. Each song nods to previous hooks and predicts future melodies. Further, the band borrow musical ideas from previous albums; most notably, a freaky flute riff from I’m In Your Mind Fuzz banger ‘Hot Water’ makes a bastardised cameo in opener ‘Robot Stop’, ring-modulated and off-balance.

 

The tracks fall over themselves in eagerness, riffs itch and scratch at the speakers, time signatures shift to and fro in all directions. Instrumentation-wise, King Gizzard are the masters of fitting unusual tones into context. Following at least four outrageous guitar solos and a spat of harmonica vibrato on the opening track, some kind of sitar cracks in, then more guitar, then some pan flutes, the list goes on. Didgeridoo? Don’t mind if I do.

‘Big Fig Wasp’ stomps out of the tail end of instrumental mania before the vespid buzz of lead single ‘Gamma Knife’ cuts in, and things descend into shamanic nightmare in the wake of the doomy ‘People-Vultures’, vocals hellishly heralding the death of Mother Earth at the hands of its inhabitants. ‘Mr Beat’ offers a welcome change in pace with slick grooves, organ fills and wobbly falsettos, and just as the album looks set to swerve into a something laid back and spacious, ‘Evil Death Roll’ punches you square in the face and driving rhythms pervade once again. ‘Invisible Face’ offers some interesting sonics as it breaks down into uneasy, fluttering jazz. Then, finally (supposing finality exists on this album – if it didn’t we’d all be insane), ‘Wah Wah’ throws some distorted bagpipes into the mix ahead of the raucous climax of ‘Road Train’, which sounds like Lemmy riding through the desert on a terrified camel, whipping it with a burning leather belt, all the while Mad Max characters are stabbing explosive pole-bombs at him from the backs of their spiked dune-buggies.

Despite the diverse instrumentation, Nonagon Infinity is an incredibly cohesive album. Like a band jam session that went hay-wire and ended up unlocking Pandora’s Box, the interplay of musical ideas between songs is refreshing and dynamic. There’s just enough rhythmic differentiation to keep things interesting, and the crazily high momentum is sustained throughout. The guitars are so fuzz-laden they quack like robotic ducks. On top of all that, the deluxe edition vinyl is covered with an image of a splattered egg, which is rad. It seems almost surprising that an album of such relentless pace can provide any degree of sonic intrigue, but it does this in barmy, blazing bucketfuls. And you can’t help but wonder, what exactly can these musical mavericks do to trump it?

“Our blue planet is parched and cracks are forming underfoot and the sweat drips from our collective temple onto the citrine sand and a feathered doom encircles us from above and there’s a pulsing in our breast telling us there ain’t nothing any mere mortal can do when the sun retreats and blackness sets in. Call upon God to deliver us from our peril.” – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, 2016.