I’m in Your Mind Fuzz

The ever-prolific King Gizzard continue to write better and better songs, but SAMSON McDOUGALL wonders if they all belong together.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are many things to many people. Their releases so far traverse everything from microdot brain melts to sugary pop, cowboy folk, beach soul and Ween-like oddities. Something that’s becoming clearer through the scattershot barrage of albums over recent times is that with each new incarnation comes stronger songwriting and more consistently excellent collections of songs. I’m in Your Mind Fuzz furthers this trend.

Previous album Oddments explored a more idiosyncratic and often poppy version of the band, but I’m in Your Mind Fuzz picks up from where 2013’s blistering psych explosion ‘Head On/Pill’ left off. It was Gizzard’s third album, Float Along – Fill Your Lungs, and that lead single, that marked their arrival. The couple of albums prior felt undercooked; interesting as exercises in the development of the band’s identity but not dependably listenable enough to stake a claim for any real challenge to the status quo. ‘Head On/Pill’s 15-odd minutes of mania changed that. It was as if they’d found their purpose on this earth and that was to freak the aural shit out of a rapidly expanding horde of fuzzy-haired dropouts and misfits.

“Opens with the most electrifying combination of songs the band have concocted to date.”

While Oddments is a super album in terms of diversification (and perhaps crossing over to more radio-playable territory), the band are best when exploring extended groove patterns and unshackling the psychedelic monster within. Catching them live reinforces this. And I’m in Your Mind Fuzz opens with the most electrifying combination of songs the band have concocted to date.

The first four numbers fit as neatly together as separate acts of the same passage, yet they bring their own uniquenesses. Remember when you first heard the opening volley of ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s Source Tags & Codes? Well, I’m in Your Mind Fuzz sounds nothing like it, but it has a similar feel in the way the ‘songs’ grip onto the heads and tails of one another. When third number ‘Cellophane’ drops, it’s like you’ve just copped six-and-a-half minutes of intro and the tension momentarily subsides through the first of many climaxes. You’re then time-warped back onto familiar real estate via the third and final part of the ‘Mind Fuzz’ triptych, which plugs along to a fadeout and transitions via a car ignition into ‘Empty’. Gently shut the door behind you, because you’re now entering the second phase of the record.

Down the rabbit hole, shit gets weird. ‘Empty’ plays out like a mid-set breather, allowing the listener to adjust to their new surrounds before the tempo picks up for ‘Hot Water’. There’s softness in the wind instruments (recorder?) and gentle cymbal washes here, and it offers some much-needed yin to a so-far yang-heavy release. The opening bars of next track ‘Am I in Heaven?’ suggest an extension of this mid-tide reprieve, but the song ramps up pretty quickly and, whether you like it or not, you’re heading back towards the kingdom of ‘Mind Fuzz’. ‘Slow Jam 1’ doesn’t sit well as the next track. The thing’s all Mike-Patton-when-he-gets-sleazy and though in isolation that’s not too much of an issue, it messes with the flow and feels like it belongs elsewhere. Ninth track ‘Satan Speeds Up’ is some of the most perfect flower-pop the band have conjured so far. It’s all analogue fuzziness and Peter and the Wolf-like woodwind dramatics. The second part of the ‘Slow Jam’ duology, ‘Her And I’, comes last and sizzles with creepy vibes as much as it fizzles the album to a close.

There’s no denying these guys their due in terms of output, but what’s questionable is whether the volume and rapidity of releases comes at the expense of coherence. Is there a dud tune on the album? Not really. They’ve barely produced a clanger in the 20-something songs across their two albums of 2014, and you can’t say that about many artists anywhere. The only question is: do all of these songs ‘belong’ together? Some of them most definitely do, and some of them not so much.

But in the end it’s incidental. Why? Because to assume King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard give a toss about ‘coherence’ is most probably missing the point altogether.

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‘I’m in Your Mind Fuzz’ is out now on CD and digitally through Flightless/Remote Control. Launch dates below.

Sat, Dec 6 – Howler, Melbourne, VIC
Thurs, Dec 11 – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW
Fri, Dec 12 – Roller Den, Sydney, NSW
Sat, Dec 13 – The Rosemount Hotel, Perth, WA
Sun, Dec 14 – Mojos, Fremantle, WA