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Almost two years after my last review on the best asocial platform in the world, I enter, Other, Write a review.
Here we go again. The urge to review overwhelms me.
I spend five minutes writing the band name and the album title, and I check to make sure I've written them correctly.
Okay, we’re ready.
"The work I'm reviewing was recently released" (sic).
I stare perplexed at the screen at the little square waiting for my click and it winks at me.
"Hmm - I think to myself, - if we were talking about a Tool album maybe it could fit..."
No, I won't check the box, even though only seven months have passed since the release of the album I'm about to review, Forward.
Yes indeed, because today I'm talking to you about an Australian band among the most prolific of our times, chameleon-like as a magical chameleon lizard that changes the tint of its rock with each album, always remaining true to its form.
Jalissiani rivers of words invade the cover of "Ice, Death, Lungs, Planets, Mushrooms and Lava", the twenty-first album of a band with an equally prolix name - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - and an expansive lineup - three guitarist/keyboardists, a harmonica player/keyboardist, a bassist, and a drummer (now alone after the departure of the former-second drummer in 2020).
Strangely, this album is just the third-to-last studio album by the band: in the same month of October 2022, two other albums were released, completely unrelated to this one in terms of concept and recording method.
IDLPMaL is an album recorded over seven days in the band's private studio, during long jam sessions of about eight hours each, and mixed by the frontman Stu Mackenzie, who cut and assembled the various tracks, selecting the most innovative parts played by each of the six band members compared to their previous work. With the exception of the drummer, all band members contributed to writing the lyrics.
The album's concept is quickly explained: during each recording day, the band improvised following a mode of the major scale per day.
What? You don't know what I'm talking about?
Don't worry, to fully appreciate this album, all you need is a micro-dose of concentration, a slightly bigger dose of free time, and a good pair of headphones, the big ones for audiophiles (but even those with a cable in your smartphone package will work just fine). And maybe why not go out for a walk in blissful nature while you listen to this album recommended by yours truly?
I forgot: the album's lyrics talk about the end of humanity, possible catastrophes, juicy diseases, astronomy, and death, all spiced with syncopated grooves and repetitive riffs that won't make you feel the looming apocalypse too heavily - so relax!
To encourage you or not to press Play with me before starting the track-by-track digression, I must mention the afrobeat and jazz-fusion influences that are heard in every track, adding exotic flavors to a solid rock foundation.
I start the highlight of the review by stating that it's not just the band name and album title: talking about an album of only seven tracks, the length is considerable - we're talking about a total of sixty-four minutes.
The first listen might, therefore, not be for all ears, with individual tracks lasting between six and fourteen minutes.
Play! The album opens with the first track, "Mycelium", a cocktail of mushrooms, saxophone, and reggae groove. The fluffy falsetto voices sing of hallucinatory visions and lucid dreams from their mushroom houses, following merry, mischievous melodies sprouting from the spores of the Ionian major scale.
The second track is "Ice V", a nice Dorian funk: the "little devil" Gibson with wha-wha, electrifying electric piano, and Fela Kuti-style drumming. The voice narrates the arrival of the immortal ice princess with a breathless chest, arriving on our planet to punish the people, a sci-fi metaphor of the possible impact of Jupiter's third moon (Ganymede) against Earth. The refrains ("Ain't getting out of here alive, Ice V has arrived!", "Will we survive?") ironically seem to respond to the classic disco-music of Gloria Gaynor with a good dose of sarcasm.
The third track is in Phrygian mode, the flamenco one to clarify: negative, painful, it stubbornly gives us false hopes.
The lyrics of "Magma" describe the triumph of fire, the slow and determined advance of magma over everything, lifting the rock and crushing and disintegrating the flesh. The bass of Lucas Skinner joins the drums giving structure to the track, pushing the rhythm and melody in an endorsement effect that builds tension to a final eruption of the track.
And it's exactly "Lava" that remains on the ground after the explosion of "Magma". The fourth track (in Lydian mode) opens with ethereal Bowie-like atmospheres thanks to the woodwinds (flute and sax) that seem to howl at the moon in a secret clearing in a light crescendo that seems the exact opposite of the previous track.
The wild drumming and a lightly hinted piano welcome the voice that, in adoration, describes the interesting properties of lava, as if wanting to show us the good side of the same coin sung in the previous track: life causes death, but also vice-versa.
"The volcano is death, the lava is death / death is life, the lava is life". In fact, lava is also an excellent fertilizer.
This is the shortest track on the album. Noteworthy are also the raga-rock influences in the drum groove and the repetitive guitar riff.
"Hell's Itch", the fifth track, is in Mixolydian mode, one of the most used in classic rock for its simultaneous propensity towards both positive and cheerful atmospheres and negative and dark ones. From a musical perspective, the protagonist here is the phenomenal drummer Michael "Cavs" Cavanagh who, with multiple variations, perfectly represents the relentless obsession of someone who can't stop scratching due to a sunburn (sunburn or hell's itch, indeed). Obviously, the lyrics are particularly shocking and well describe the consequences of continuous scratching. If you enjoy Cronenberg's body horror, you'll appreciate the track's lyrics!
This is the longest track on the album, almost 14 minutes. Maybe the relentless need to scratch also represents the band's relentless need to keep playing in a long, long jam.
Sixth track, the second single released and, to me, the best track on the album, "Iron Lung" has the desperate atmosphere typical of the Lydian mode.
The lyrics tell of a man closed in an iron lung (search the internet to understand what kind of contraption it is) worn out from a life of boredom and limits that offers him no joy except when he manages to escape and find a bit of peace with... hallucinogenic mushrooms! A sort of "don't worry, be happy", in short...
The track features a couple of verses alternating with the chorus, followed by fairly long instrumental parts that alternate in another crescendo: the explosion this time comes with a new and unexpected verse sung by the keyboardist/harmonicist Ambrose Kenny-Smith (also the saxophonist here) who makes good use of his particularly high vocal range thanks to the blues his voice can convey, before the track fades back to the chorus and thus closes nearly on tiptoe.
The saturated, distorted, and compressed guitar solos of mustached Joey Walker and frontman Mackenzie sometimes recall the '60s and '70s productions of Santana, stripped of virtuosity incursions.
The train has derailed, the end is near: "Gliese 710" is the last track, based on the most dissonant mode, the Locrian mode.
Are you aware of the humanity's nightmare destiny, the blood rains, and 90% of the brutal solos in thrash/death metal?
Well, they all rely on that fifth, called the "devil's note," a peculiar characteristic of this scale.
The lyrics describe the destruction of a planet, one with water on it (you know what I mean), contemplated with a bittersweet gaze by a distant observer - while Gliese-710 is a star speculated to collide with our solar system within a million years.
In this case, the band gives us a dissonant and calmly sinister track. Its constant tension makes it seem a mix between a space horror film score and that of a noir detective story.
The organ played by
The timing in 7/4, varying to 9/4 towards the end, and the lack of a "classic" structure in favor of a constant main riff repetition makes this track the least catchy, but also the least predictable.
The final seconds of the track on the album let us hear the band preparing to play the first track, "Mycelium", inviting us to listen to the album in a continuous cycle.
The generous hour of the album has gone by quite quickly, and perhaps it wasn't enough for me to write the entirety of this review or for you to read through it. Be patient.
For a band that started not-so-long-ago in 2010 at twenty years old, arriving in 2022 to play three sold-out dates at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado, and twenty-five studio albums released to date, this album is, in my opinion, a milestone marking a new peak in their career.
I don't know if I would place it among the most important albums of 2022 compared to all the innovative music released, but it is certainly an album to be listened to and appreciated more than once.
P.S.: I saw them mid-March 2023 at Alcatraz in Milan and, of course, they left me quite pumped up.
If you have the chance, catch their show in Padua next August.
Tracklist
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