Album review: Polygondwanaland – King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

Album+review%3A+Polygondwanaland+%E2%80%93+King+Gizzard+%26+the+Lizard+Wizard

If Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd had a music-infused love child, the Australian-born band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (KGLW) would be stumbling across the questionably progressive rock universe. Spewing music that could easily be the soundtrack to a 1970s hippie film, KGLW has released multiple albums enlisting the help of a multitude of instruments and vocal ranges. Their most recent album, “Polygondwanaland,” explores the outlandish and fervent macrocosm of rock n’ roll while stringing along the notions of scandalous jazz and licks of heavy metal.

We start our adventure in the tunnels of “Crumbling Castle,” bringing to light the Claymation protagonist inching his way into the depths of a world unknown. The hushed voices and electric guitar bothered by the bass trembling in 5/8 and 7/4 introduce the world as a psychedelic “post-apocalyptic” timepiece. The castle has been destroyed and war stained, and it’s up to the protagonist to save cities disfigured and to explore its abyss.

“Water’s rising up, thick and green … / Are we safe in our citadel?”

The desert plain is revealed after hours of carrying the weight of distant refuge, wind blowing the protagonist’s long locks in, “Polygondwanaland.” Flutists and fiddlers dance and cry as the drought of the desert causes hallucinations to form and take over the brain. Moving chaotically into “The Castle In The Air,” a woman’s voice whispers a semiotic chime, empowering the protagonist to keep moving his soggy clay feet to the time signature changes baring similar beats to the chasm band, Tool. As if perfectly planted, we come across the next song, “Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet.”

As the tempestuous sea becomes closer, unknown demons fight and attempt to grasp the protagonist’s mind, making “Inner Cell,” call for an internal battle. Constant pressure and negative thoughts; every line cut short with staccato and declared in such a profoundly immoral timbre. The struggle transcends into “Loyalty,” giving a brighter and blinding light to the adventure, increasing in confidence and wit. The protagonist has won the internal battle. 

Strangling the beast of the sea is a hard feat, its dragon scales twisting into mist when pricked and touched. “Horology,” and “Tetrachromacy,” both adhere to the temptations of the beast and the crusty crusade…temptations to give up and negate life; become an unknown among the defeated.

But, with one last glimmer of shimmering hope, we’re greeted with “Searching…,”  the song to bring him back to life and yield the beastly temptations. Imagine the protagonist gasping for breath. He hears the clamoring of bongos and claps in sync with mild strums of acoustic strings that grasp and collapse into his clay wrists toward the surface.

“I am omnipresent for thee … / I walk the streets holy”

The world is at ease for three seconds, froth in the sea, before the last song. “The Fourth Colour” emerges into the sound-waves. Battle and blood between the beast and protagonist. Overzealous beats of burden enrage. The winner lives.

But the win is more of a Schrödinger-esque plea against the dying of the citadel. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard enlist the sound of silence in the middle of the last song to usher out the ideology of the new world.