King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity

Released April 29, 2016

It’s taken me a while to get around to check out King Gizzard properly. None of their previous radio singles had ever stood out immediately for me, but I’ve always been intrigued by their vigorous work ethic and experimentation. The fact that they’ve put out two albums a year for the past three years is bloody amazing, not to mention that each album explores a different style from the one before or has a new and interesting conceptual idea behind it.

I didn’t mind a few songs off the last King Gizzard album, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon. I thought it was great that their attempt to not create a concept album became the concept for that particular record. But when I heard the idea behind their new album and heard the first single, I was excited to hear more.

Nonagon Infinity is a nine-song album, where each song blends seamlessly into the next, so the whole album is an endless loop—the last song leads straight back to the first. It’s also their heaviest record to date, with most of the songs delivered in flat out, psychedelic, prog rock ‘n’ roll style—a big departure from the dreamy psych-folk of Paper Mâché. If you know your King Giz, this one is stylistically similar to 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, but with the rock knob turned way up.

‘Robot Stop’ kicks things off, with the line ‘Nonagon Infinity opens the door’ becoming a repeated mantra throughout the album. At a rollicking 200bpm, it keeps the same bass line as it careers into ‘Big Fig Wasp’ before phasing into first single ‘Gamma Knife’, with its stomping beat and maniacal howling. The whole album has a ’70s Kung Fu movie vibe to it, which the awesome video to ‘Gamma Knife’ plays up beautifully.

Second single ‘People Vultures’ continues with the same beat before slowing down into the very catchy 7/8 time signature of ‘Mr. Beat’. ‘Evil Death Roll’ drum rolls into ‘Invisible Face’, then slides into the much slower, trippier ‘Wah Wah’. The album ends (well, sorta) with the rollicking ‘Road Train’, before masterfully changing gears back to the intro riff of ‘Robot Stop’.

It’s a great ride. It all feels like a massive jam session, the music feeling its way to new areas but always returning to the main rhythm. The production perfectly suits the style, and the lyrics are brilliantly weird and repetitively memorable.

It took a while, but the Lizard Wizard has cast its spell, and I’m officially hooked.

Favourite Song: ‘Gamma Knife’.

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