King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Fishing For Fishies (Album Review)
Wednesday, 01 May 2019
Written by Grant Jones
After a ludicrously productive 2017 saw them release five albums, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have returned after a much needed two year break with ‘Fishing For Fishies’. It’s remarkable that a band as prolific as these Australian psychedelic masters attempts new things at an equally alarming rate, and here they have somehow managed to find another string to their bow.
Slotted between the psych, punk, garage-rock, techno, space-rock and folk of their previous releases they have discovered an additional genre to explore: straight up blues. Every song still contains the Krautrock formula—finding a groove and sticking with it—that has powered their earlier albums to fantastic effect, but here it is applied to gritty Delta blues to put huge smiles on faces.
There is a welcome looseness to ‘Fishing For Fishies’ that pushes back against the previous tightness of performance that could leave us feeling constricted and paranoid. Here King Gizzard allow themselves to shake loose, meaning we can swim peacefully in the space that’s created.
There are plenty of influences apparent here. Boogieman Sam doesn’t shy away from its Led Zeppelin blueprints, while JJ Cale’s tone is painted all over the place.
This LP is made for summer and seemingly designed to prove that you don’t always need to be on the front line of creating new sounds in order to produce an album that feels reassuringly fresh.
Plastic Boogie starts to introduce the heaviness that is always expected and doesn’t fail to deliver—it’s a simple formula, but one that is seldom used to this effect. But Real’s Not Real is the stand out track. It expands on that heaviness with the best riff on the album, but then delves into a piano-led jazz jaunt that somehow feels logical.
We are finally led back into King Gizzard’s expected neo-psychedelic, brain-frying world at the album’s finale, leaving us feeling like we’ve been ripped from the banks of the Mississippi by a beam of light in the night sky.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon September 30 2019 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
Tue October 01 2019 - GLASGOW Barrowland Ballroom
Wed October 02 2019 - LEEDS O2 Academy Leeds
Thu October 03 2019 - MANCHESTER O2 Victoria Warehouse Manchester
Sat October 05 2019 - LONDON Alexandra Palace
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