Psychedelic rock could stand accused of being stuck in a dizzying time warp that picks up somewhere in a yard with Clapton and Jeff Beck. Acts Psychedelic rock could stand accused of being stuck in a dizzying time warp that picks up somewhere in a yard with Clapton and Jeff Beck. Acts like Tame Impala, Melody's Echo Chamber, Thee Oh Sees, and Morgan Delt make their living on a retrofied aesthetic coming through the internet information storm, and this is good news for people (like me) who grew up playing that music and to whom rock music is something essentially sacred. Bands like Greta Van Fleet and Joyous Wolf take the Zeppelin a little too literally for my taste, and this brings us nicely to King Gizzard.



On Flying Microtonal Banana, which was conceived on holiday in Turkey, then mostly scrapped, and recorded in the band's first of many manic frenzies afterwards, Gizzard and the Wizard execute a range of stylistic bends. The A-side rides a groovey and jerky krautrock motor in lead single "Rattlesnake" through the Fela-esque tropical flute storm of "Melting" into the aptly-named 70's-riff-oddysey that is "Open Water", with a twist: your traditional rock-and-roll chords and desert melodies of Gizzard's previous hard-rock projects has morphed into modal microtonal music, refining a progressive trick that the boys had first blasted out of their equipment on the A-side of 2016's Nonagon Infinity. The band's translation of oriental modality into a rock format is, it's true, rough at times, as the rolling third track begins to churn into something like "Kashmir", which is in no way a bad thing, and loses some of the enchantment of the utterly-psychedelic keyboard meltdown which proceeds it.



The B-side opens with the single that most resembles the stylistic roots of the album; interviews suggest it's the only song from Stu's holiday which actually made it onto the disc. "Sleep Drifter", which is by far the greatest contribution to the band's live act on Microtonal Banana, renders a love poem in (very nearly) traditional Turkish makam, and has probably the finest production of all the tracks on the record, (which is, for the most part, a little more refined than Nonagon Infinity). The track recalls something from the 13th Floor Elevators' debut, with perhaps Stu's most refined lyricism, drawing apparent inspiration from John Lennon circa-1968.



Ambrose gets one of his finest turns on lead, singing an honest-to-God Bush Ballad over a droning "vegemite western" groove with some rather interestingly-arranged piano. It strikes a kind of somber tone and feeling not heard since, "Sam Cherry's Last Shot", with which it has much it common. Joey's "Anoxia" continues this feeling bold and bluesy, though the lyrical thread begins to break down, with the kind of roach-choking feeling that the title implies, while "Doom City" seems to be an experiment in crafting a sonic weaponized heavy-metal bomb that strikes without context at the opening of a killer set. It's bizarre and apocalyptic scene is allegedly an ode to Chinese smog, and summons some of Sleep's gnarliest doom-rock:



"Spark in firmament; Doom City sky opens up.

He, the Empyrean, breathes, from his mouth and over tongue,

charged particles. Doom City air rips me apart.

Unbelievable; Doom City sky makes him laugh,"



and Joey provides a wicked villain laugh, because this is not your neighborhood's lame punk rock band.



"Nuclear Fusion" continues a trend seen in "Invisible Face > WahWah", if not earlier, of ending albums with a kind of consciously-hyperbolic domer. Perhaps one of the weaker tracks on the disc, it transitions seamlessly into the instrumental coda, a shimmering mandala of zurna, and lute, and congo drum. True to form, the final track fades with the sound of desert winds howling in the distance, creating a perfect circle with the beginning of the album.



The paper CD sleeve features a fun little treatise on Pythagorean tuning and microtonal music, which perfectly essentializes the ethos that King Gizzard had generated in the first five years of their independently-funded and -realized existence. That is, one wonders if the boys know quite what they're talking about.



"Flying Microtonal Banana" is a thoroughly enjoyable listen for anyone who likes to get stoned. … Expand