King Gizzard has also challenged what an album is

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is an Australian psychedelic rock band formed in Melbourne in 2010. The band consists of six members, including two drummers, two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist, and a harmonica player. Over the course of their career, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released a wide range of albums, each with its own distinct sound and style. Their music draws on a variety of influences, including 1960s psychedelic rock, garage rock, progressive rock, jazz, and heavy metal. The band is known for their high-energy live shows and their prolific output, having released over 20 albums since their formation in 2010. Some of their most well-known albums include “Nonagon Infinity,” “I’m in Your Mind Fuzz,” and “Flying Microtonal Banana.” But what makes them so special?

by Jorik Schuirink

K ing Gizzard often uses microtonality in their music. Microtonality is a musical technique that involves dividing the octave into more than 12 equal parts, resulting in notes that are in-between notes we use in Western music. King Gizzard has been incorporating microtonality into their music since their 2017 album, “Flying Microtonal Banana,” and has continued to experiment with this technique on subsequent releases. On “Flying Microtonal Banana,” the band used custom-made instruments that could produce microtonal scales, and thus reach notes that conventional instruments could not. The album’s title track features a guitar riff that uses a non-western scale with quarter-tone intervals, giving the song a distinctive, exotic sound. The song “Rattlesnake” also makes use of microtonality, with its droning bass line and repetitive, hypnotic melody. The band’s subsequent albums, such as “Polygondwanaland,” “Gumboot Soup,” and “Infest the Rats’ Nest,” also feature microtonal elements. For example, “The Fourth Colour” from “Polygondwanaland” uses microtonal guitar riffs, and “Mars for the Rich” from “Infest the Rats’ Nest” features a microtonal riff played on a distorted bass. King Gizzard’s use of microtonality adds a unique flavor to their already eclectic sound, and showcases their willingness to experiment with different musical techniques.

We have established that King Gizzard is conventionally seen as a psychedelic rock band. While most of their music could be placed in that genre, the band is known to experiment with all kinds of genres. “Sketches of Brunswick East” is an entirely instrumental jazz fusion album, “Infest the Rats’ Nest” features elements of trash and speed metal, and songs like “Muckraker” and “Cellophane,” feature surf-rock inspired guitar riffs.

King Gizzard has also challenged what an album is. They have released two spoken-word story-based albums, “Eyes Like The Sky” and “Murder of the Universe”. The former tells a story about an outlaw named The Balrog with Americana-Western music, while the latter is a King Crimson-esque prog rock album with sci-fi spoken word lyrics about the end of the world. I also want to mention the album “Gumboot Soup”. While not strictly a concept album, it features a diverse range of musical styles and themes, with each track representing a different “flavor” of soup, which I think is very funny.

Of course, I cannot talk in-depth about all King Gizzard albums, so I won’t, but I hope I have convinced you that this band is worth checking out, if you haven’t already. If you like artists like Tame Impala, you should listen to “Nonagon Infinity” and “I’m In Your Mind Fuzz”. If you like acoustic music more, you should listen to “Paper Mâché Dream Balloon” and “Sketches of Brunswick East”.