King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
Nonagon Infinity - King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

THE REVIEW

Is it possible to conceive, record, and release six albums, each different from the other, within two years? And with often amazing and astounding results? Normally no, at least as far as the qualitative side of the matter is concerned. And yet, these seven Australian psychopaths calling themselves King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard have just released “Nonagon Infinity”, as usual, with almost no warning.

If with “I'm In Your Mind Fuzz” from 2014, they explored the lands of a mutant garage, adorned with flute interludes, the following “Quarters” saw them engage in 4 suites of 10 minutes each, indicating that something much more lay behind their high attitude. This "something more" unveiled itself in the unexpected “Paper Maché Dream Balloon” released around last Christmas, a beautiful potpourri of Albion folk, Beatlesque melodies, various types of reeds, and splashes of foolish psychedelia.

So, what to expect from this sudden new release? Musically speaking, let's say the sound returns to “I'm In Your Mind Fuzz”, namely, a garage with robotic tendencies, almost krautrock in its repetition of guitar lines and rhythmic patterns, even between one track and another. Something similar had been accomplished by John Dwyer's Thee Oh Sees in “Carrion Crawler/The Dream”,, which managed to merge raucous garage onslaughts with motorik rhythms.

In “Nonagon Infinity”, King Gizzard takes this idea of musical repetition to its extreme consequences, offering nine tracks deliberately conceived as a continuous jam, where there is practically no clear-cut break, and if listened to on repeat, they practically transform into an infinite loop.

It's difficult to describe the tracks, but let's say that personally the duo of “Gamma Knife” and “People-Vultures”, complete with consecutive videos that pure delirium would be an understatement, are lethal examples of 2000s garage. As mentioned, they greatly favor the frontal assault compared to the mid-tempo pauses of previous albums (“Evil Death Roll” or the almost metal of “Road Train”), which here are partly only present in “Mr. Beat” or the monotonous “Wah Wah”.

To be honest, so far it's the least successful album of these crazy Australians, but beware, because their word is slowly spreading, and behind the silly name and goofy attitude hides a band with real guts. Someone bring them to Italy, immediately!