Sanjoy Narayan on King Gizzard, a lizard wizard and the chameleons of rock

By the time King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (often shortened by fans to King Gizz) released their latest album, the mysteriously titled Flight b741, earlier this month, I had lost count of how many studio albums the hyper-prolific Australian outfit had released, in their 14 years.

That number turns out to be 26. But it doesn’t include about 16 live albums, several compilations, and scores of singles and music videos.

King Gizz have garnered a significant popularity, especially within the psychedelic rock and indie music scenes, and their prolific output has helped build this dedicated and passionate fan base. In addition, there is the cult of fans known as Gizzheads, who travel to attend gigs, in a behaviour reminiscent of the devotion associated with bands such as the Grateful Dead.
Yet what truly sets King Gizz apart is their music, which refuses to be pinned down to a genre. The sextet — of frontman Stu Mackenzie and Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Lucas Harwood and Michael Cavanagh, all now in their 30s — are, to draw a reference from the band name, like a particular type of lizard: the chameleon.
Each of King Gizz’s albums exudes a different aesthetic. Listening to the new album, Flight b741, feels like entering a time machine that whisks one back by more than half a century. The 10 songs on it are a heartfelt homage to classic 1970s rock: the blues rock of the Steve Miller Band; even the soft rock of The Doobie Brothers. The guitar riffs of yore, the harmonica solos, the upbeat vocal whoopings… are all there.
Yet, when one listens to the lyrics, there’s a difference. They aren’t about escaping to an unreal idyll of the past but about cold, hard trysts with the 21st century’s realities.
On Raw Feel, the music is charmingly catchy and the vocals are smooth, but the lyrics are quite dark: “How does it feel / To you when you’re circling the drain? / Is it for real? / Can you ever know you’re feeling pain?”
If, instead of Flight b741, you enter the world of their music via The Silver Cord (2023), you would likely have a whole other impression of the band. Eschewing guitars, they choose synthesisers to drive this electropop album, drawing inspiration from electronic music pioneers such as Giorgio Moroder. Flight b741 and The Silver Cord sound like they come from different planets.
That is the thing about King Gizz.
Pick up 2013’s Float Along – Fill Your Lungs and play the first track, Head On/Pill (warning: it is nearly 16 minutes long), and one finds oneself on a trip not much different from the opening lyrics of the song: “Just yesterday I sat across from my legs / They weren’t connected to me / And I couldn’t see ’cause my eyes were in me / Hold me up straight while I screw my / Head on / Head on.”
The album is a cosmic adventure, a quintessential psychedelic rock experience featuring sitars, wah-wah pedals and spaced-out production that guarantees a trip.
Instead of that trippy offering, if one were to chance upon another of their 2023 albums, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, one would find an unadulterated heavy-, thrash-metal album with all the aggression, speed and vocal growl of that sub-genre, which is especially conducive to near-violent headbanging.
King Gizz’s technical wizardry is remarkable. Not only are several of the band members multi-instrumentalists (frontman Mackenzie, for instance, sings and plays keyboards, flute, bass guitar, percussion, sitar, piano, organ, violin, clarinet, saxophone, zurna [a Central-Asian wind reed instrument] and the drums), they are able to traverse everything from psychedelic rock to garage rock and acid rock to progressive rock, indie rock, heavy metal, and everything in-between.
On the 2015 album Quarters!, they showcase their ability to blend jazz elements with their unique style, featuring four tracks, each exactly 10 minutes and 10 seconds long.
And, on Flying Microtonal Banana (2017), the band tuned their instruments to intervals smaller than the traditional semitone in Western music, to blend elements of psychedelic rock, acid rock, krautrock and Middle-Eastern music.
Gizzheads love the group’s unpredictable approach, which, in fact, extends beyond the music. In 2017, King Gizz put their master recordings for an album online and said anyone could use them to produce vinyl LPs. Even the band doesn’t know how many of these independent releases exist — probably hundreds.
(To write in with feedback, email [email protected])