You could be forgiven for dismissing King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard as a novelty. Their name alone sounds like it was created using some kind of random name generator, they have enough band members to field a football team and they seem to release something new every time the seasons change, but as always context is everything! These superficial red flags, be they subconscious or otherwise, are fleeting at best when you surrender your attention to the music and inevitably fall for all these eccentricities and how uncontrived they actually are.
This enigmatic outfit hit me for a number of reasons, the most potent being their playfulness. There’s a freedom in their playing that screams one simple truth, it’s really fun to play in a band. Despite the fact their musical prowess allows them to pull off fairly intricate ditties, they seem to really cherish the raw elements of their sound earning them a jam band label without ever limiting themselves to that or any other branding.
Paper Mache Dream Balloon is as much of an extension of their sound as it is an escape from it, which really is a masterful feat when you consider they’ve chosen to abandon any form of electricity, literally. None of the instruments you hear throughout the record were plugged in and will no doubt come as a surprise to many given their back catalogue is a psychedelic shredfest, but as the band stated in a recent interview with Seattle radio station KEXP “we were starting to get bummed out by not being able to make a song that’s just a song and not some epic thing”. Enter Paper Mache Dream Balloon.
Like any King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard record it’s counterproductive to try and define Paper Mache Dream Balloon under any sort of genre as any attempt will resemble a thesis of sorts, but what’s immediately noticeable from this effort is the emphasis put on song over sound. That’s not suggest it sonically suffers as a result, in fact it’s arguably their most interesting sounding record yet, but what’s less debatable is that Paper Mache is their most accomplished collection in terms of song writing.
There’s still a sense of exploration in these numbers but in a far less traditional sense. To release a rather restrained lounge type album full of sub four minutes tracks (excluding one) is experimental in its own right given where they are coming from and it would have been so very easy for them to blow it, but thankfully it’s an utter triumph. It may lack the immediacy of I’m In Your Mind Fuzz or Quarters but given some space its melodic and entwined instrumentation is revealed and rewards repeat listeners.
We’re introduced to this lush outing via the opener “Sense”, a delicate and jazzy encounter that is a real calming influence and wouldn’t offend even the most stoic of King Gizzard fans despite its lack of furious riffing. It’s amazing how quickly everything makes sense and how adaptable their playing skills actually are. It’s also a very complete record, the type where you feel like you’re cheating if use the skip track button as these songs work in unison, which is far from a foreign concept to this band of course.
Some welcomed quirkiness arrives via “Trapdoor”, a trippy and energetic song that’s typically fun and hopelessly catchy, an apt description of the entire album really. Much like most living organisms, the heart of this record lies in the centre with songs like “Cold Cadaver”, “The Bitter Boogie” and “N.G.R.I” ensuring this change in direction (as temporary as it may be) won’t wear out easily, for these songs etch themselves in your mind fuzz as the title of their 2014 record would have you believe.
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are eclectic, prolific and eccentric but it would all be redundant if they weren’t exceptional. This album just further consolidates that very fact, not because it’s brave to take such a shift in direction but because they lack the fear to do whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want, and most importantly they master it with conviction and a smile on their face.
Review Score: 8.5 out of 10
Paper Mache Dream Balloon is out on November 13th.
For more info on the band, click here: http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/
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