Having only formed in 2010, it seems mind-blowing that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – a seven-piece psych garage band that wafted hither on the psychotropic mists emanating from the peaking Aussie psych scene – have self-released enough albums on their own Flightless label to grow bored of space rock already.
On this seventh(!) album they ditch electric instruments altogether, break out the acoustics, orange crate drums, flutes, harmonicas and sitars and make a scuzzy pastoral hippie-folk record akin to Love’s most tequila-fuelled demos.
Channelling the spirits of bands from Athens, Georgia’s no-fi Elephant Six scene such as The Olivia Tremor Control and Welsh wizards Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, it’s a charming half hour of buzz-fucked folk melody taking in hazy jazz or blues grooves (Sense, The Bitter Boogie), Hair style campfire tunes (Bone, Cold Cadaver, the infectious title track) and wobbly they’re-coming-to-take-me-away bad pop trips (Trapdoor, N.G.R.I. (Bloodstain)).
Dream-folkies will be transported back to the gauzy early days of Genesis or the Byrds, indie heads will be transported back to the most powerful skunk spliff they ever smoked along to Pond, Grandaddy or Neutral Milk Hotel. It’s certainly headier than any dream balloon you’d get from a dodgy bloke with a canister at Glastonbury.
