King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Sketches Of Brunswick East album review

A prodigious output is one thing, but keeping it all interesting is another. King Gizzard have now issued 11 albums since debuting in 2012, with Sketches Of Brunswick East being the third in a projected run of five this year alone. What appears to keep the band hungry is their willingness to try anything, and a determination to defy expectations. Thus the heavy psych vibes of 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz were followed by the acoustic prog folk of Paper Mâché Dream Balloon. Similarly, this summer’s end-of-days stoner epic Murder Of The Universe, a concept piece in three distinct parts, has now been succeeded by a relatively brusque, Miles Davis-referencing collaboration with smooth Los Angeles avant-jazz types Mild High Club. Save for some Fifth Dimensionstyle harmonies, it’s mostly instrumental, a loose song suite of sinewy bass and woodwinds. It feels like an extended interlude rather than a fully fledged work, though the proggy pastorale of The Spider And Me and Sketches Of Brunswick East II manage to find a contrast in the whirligig trippiness of The Book and the Chemical Brothers-ish A Journey To S(Hell).