Float Along – Fill Your Lungs

King Gizzard’s third album in the space of a year is by far the least anarchic thing they’ve done. Yet it delves into more mystical and abstract realms than most young psych bands, writes BARNABY SMITH.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] In a small way, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s fecundity precedes them. It is not so much the mere fact that they have now released three albums in about a year, but the diversity across those records. First came the exuberant explosion of 12 Bar Bruise, an effort to distil their live delivery onto record, then Eyes Like the Sky, a rather perverse concept album of spaghetti western-influenced rock. And now this, a strange but coherent, ambitious but primitive, triumph.

Float Along – Fill Your Lungs is by far the least anarchic thing this Victorian seven-piece has done, rich with hazy, loose and incredibly patient passages of propulsive rock. A prevalent sitar and several drone-based tracks suggest a ’60s-influenced psychedelic album, but King Gizzard seem too wise to embrace such a cliché. Rather than The Grateful Dead, The Black Angels or even My Bloody Valentine, their psychedelic lineage is arguably more discerning, and with a strong British flavour: at various points the album is reminiscent of Spiritualized, Super Furry Animals and Clinic.

The trick with Float Along – Fill Your Lungs is to not be too enthralled with the 16-minute opening track ‘Head On/Pill’. It’s an amorphous and thrilling burst of sustained energy that might threaten to overwhelm the rest of the album (which passes surprisingly quickly) were the other songs not so strong. ‘Head On/Pill’ is, though, truly devastating, actually indulging in those swaggering psychedelic tropes before leaping off into more imaginative instrumental terrain that calls to mind the unbelievable invention of White Denim’s last album, D.

“It may be hugely derivative but still treads its own path.”

As on ‘opus’ that opener is engrossing, yet they exceed it with the closing title track, surely one of the greatest tracks to emerge from any Australian artist this year. Devoid of the small but influential punk nods that litter the album elsewhere, this unassuming seven minutes is a warm, spiritual and reflective masterpiece that exudes a sense of a band putting down pretensions and arriving at their honest selves. It may be hugely derivative – as well as those bands already mentioned, this track has charming shades of Fairport Convention’s ‘Reynardine’, along with the whimsical early-’70s prog of King Crimson – but certainly still treads its own path.

One of the most attractive things about both these tracks is that the sounds ring true. That is, the sitar, the sensitive and drifting guitar, and particularly the vocals of Stu Mackenzie are not shrouded in effects and distortion, as some of King Gizzard’s previous work has been.

“They make the Tame Impala/Pond coterie seem like little boys playing in the sand with toys.”

In between these two breathtaking tracks, things are a little more piecemeal, inconsistent, but more melodic. ‘I’m Not a Man Unless I Have a Woman’ channels both the camp hysteria of Arthur Brown and, in the unsophisticated sitar lines, the more chart-friendly moments of Traffic. Indeed, silliness continues on the crude but colourful ‘God is Calling Me Back’. ‘30 Past 7’ revisits early-’90s Britain again with its Stone Roses homage, while there is something of Sydney’s Royal Headache and their mash-up of garage-rock with Motown and other soul in ‘Let Me Mend the Past’.

These are all morsels – some brilliant, some disarming, all enjoyable – yet it is that pair of beasts that bookend Float Along – Fill Your Lungs that elevates their third album above and beyond most. As far as their place in psychedelia goes, they make the Tame Impala/Pond coterie seem like little boys playing in the sand with toys, as these more introverted young men delve into darker, more mystical, abstract realms.

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‘Float Along – Fill Your Lungs’ is out now through Flightless/Dot Dash. Launch tour dates below.

Sat, Oct 19 – Corner, Melbourne, VIC
Fri, Oct 25 – Jive, Adelaide, SA
Fri, Nov 1 – Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane, QLD
Sat, Nov 2 – The Standard, Sydney, NSW
Fri, Nov 8 – Yah Yah’s, Perth, WA
Sun, Nov 10 – Mojo’s, Fremantle, WA