Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Bandcamp 2016.
While trawling through Bandcamp looking for something interesting to review I stumbled upon this fantastic album.
For those not in the know King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are one of the best and most prolific bands to emerge from Melbourne in recent years, or probably ever.
They formed in 2010 and started as mostly a garage/surf/punk band.
Their first recorded work that I heard was Willoughby’ Beach (2011) and it was a great blast of elemental garage rock.
I hadn’t listened to any new work from them until Nonagon Infinity and my first impression was amazement at how far they had come musically since those early years.
Nonagon Infinity may contain the energy of their earlier work but the level of sophistication has ramped up a thousand percent.
Nonagon Infinity is comprised of nine tracks that are linked together musically by bridging sections that transition one track into the next.
While this technique is not unique, Nonagon Infinity is the first album that I’ve heard that has taken the technique to its logical conclusion.
The closing notes of Road Train are exactly the same as the beginning of Robot Stop, the opening song.
Thus, if you set your player to continuous play you end up with a perfect loop, you’re back into the beginning before you realise it.
It’s seamless.
Some might argue that Pink Floyd came close to this with albums like Meddle, Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, and there is some truth in that, but I suggest that it was never done with the intention of creating a perfect loop of continuous play.
Nonagon Infinity won King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard the ARIA Award for the Best Hard Rock category on its release in 2016 and it really is a brilliant album.
The energy oozes from each groove and it’ll be just as good in ten years as it was on release and is now.
There’s a timelessness to it.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have an unbelievable work ethic, their output is staggering, they’ve released four live albums this year alone, despite coronavirus and restrictions.
A quick Google search will show you just how prolific they are.
