I guess I’ll end up checking it out sometime. I thought to myself.

That’s not to say I didn’t like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard before. My first encounter with King Gizz was about a year ago — I was in one of those drab moments of listening to music where I was stuck in a real rut. You know that feeling where you’ve begun to rest on the music you’re currently appreciating too much and try to branch out, but end up just crawling back defeated despite your desire to find something new? That feeling. But once friends showed me tracks like “Gamma Knife” and “People-Vultures,” their mid-to-late-80’s classic grunge sound mixed with their neo-psychedelic flavors scratched almost every itch of mine at the time; it managed to satisfy my lean towards heavier music while fueling my neo-psychedelic exploration that began with Tame Impala and Pond. And like any tough to reach itch, scratching it was sensational. But I quickly found the itch had spread, and their other albums weren’t quite doing it for me. Nonagon Infinity always offered a cozy home, but newer material like Murder of the Universe came across as interesting conceptually but…a little corny? It was cool but it also felt like it was lampooning itself at the same time.

I thus more or less became disinterested in the band outside of returning to my favorites, right up until Polygonwanaland’s open source release came about.

Polygonwanaland is everything I needed to get back into King Gizz. “Crumbling Castle,” which has been available online for a while, is probably my favorite of the bunch. As the first track, it establishes with immediacy the more Tool-like disposition my friend described to pique my interest. That’s not to say it sounds like a Tool ripoff; it is clearly its own unit. But I gotta say to the parts of the Gizz community that reject that assertion with vehemence… come on, man. Heck, so much of the lyrical pattern sounds like Maynard wrote it. Yes, it’s not the same — Tool opts for heavier sections a lot — but atmospherically there’s a lot of similarity, especially with 10,000 Days. Things don’t have to sound like carbon copies of eachother to say they sound like they belong together.

Whew. Anyway, that sensation is expressed early on to great success, but the music also quickly makes a point of expanding from that. Synths are very present, and are very welcome; used to atmospherically elevate the works, the album still fits snugly in the rock realm while incorporating electronic elements. The first track ends with a pretty stoner-doomy expression additionally; with some different production it wouldn’t be too far off from bands like Belzebong, 1000 Mods, or Sleep. The title track follows up with a similarly chill atmosphere.

There does seem to be a bit of a weird shift in direction that occurred during the creation of the album. “Crumbling Castle” clocks in at about 10 minutes long, preparing the listener for a lot of more lengthy and exploratory tracks; each track following it, however, clocks in comfortably below the 4 minute mark (save the album closer). Not to say it interrupts the flow in any way — the more proggy concept album feel is uninterrupted between each track. But it does kind of suggest that sometime after releasing “Crumbling Castle,” they chose to chop a couple other 10 minute songs into many songs.

Its due to this chopped up nature that I have trouble recalling exactly which songs I have a fondness for. Most of the time the tracks lead into each other pretty seamlessly, further solidifying my inkling that they may have previously been one or two longer tracks. This seamlessness is largely what makes the album so good, but is the double edged sword that makes it hard to pinpoint exactly which tracks I enjoyed. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who studiously sits down with the tracklist in front of them while they listen to a new record, and I know I sure didn’t — I’m much more focused on listening.

That’s not to say I won’t go back and look, ya weiners. Upon quick review, “Horology” struck me as a very strong track, kind of sounding like a faster reconstructed intro to “Lateralus.” “Searching…” resonates strongly as well with a very nice synthy drone combined with some Indian and Middle Eastern percussion and melody. “Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet” houses a lot of bouncy energy that I keep on returning for.

Also, before I go any further, I’d like to note that each track seems to be represented in the album art. A lot of album art more or less expresses an overarching idea; this art not only looks awesome artistically, but at least seems to mention each track visually.

Despite my excitement and repeating return to the album, just like any other record this album definitely has some of its low points. I’ve noticed in the past that King Gizz really likes to do this thing where there’s a quick drum roll that leads into a section of quick tempo, often accompanied by harmonica. I’ve listened to enough of the band’s material that it feels pretty shticky, and unfortunately it surfaces on this album as well; when they do that it usually sounds the same to me, and I could really do without its presence. Other parts feel like they’re missing some energy, particularly towards the mid-end of “Crumbling Castle.” And I wouldn’t feel right not mentioning that I’m not particularly fond of the spoken word narration style that appears on “Castle in the Sky” — that’s part of what turned me off of Murder of the Universe. That said, I think the narration that that track is rather appropriate; it’s sufficient to create the atmosphere of an epic, but doesn’t hijack the music.

Ultimately housing flavors that Tool fans will appreciate, the album quickly solidifies that it is a child of psychedelic and prog music all around, and does not owe its existence to the oft-praised prog metal behemoths. If you like classic psychedelia and prog rock, some stoner metal , as well as neo-psychedelia and modern prog, this is definitely an album for you. It rests comfortably in a combination of each flavor, and stands out as its own distinct quality album.

8/10

You might like this if you like: Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, Tool, Opeth, Pond, King Crimson, Green River

You can support this artist by buying their music….well a lot of places because of how this album was released, but also at Bandcamp.