don't waste it, your time’s a bank
come on and end it, he's real bad
don't indulge him, no, you better trust me
why can’t you see it?
i saw it before but when you weren't there
sprinkling his gaze everywhere
so dazzling, honestly between us
he's been totally lying, yeah
heard him say
we can go wherever you like
baby, say the words and i'm down
all i need is you on my side
we can go whenever you like.
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King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava
(Jazz Rock, Jam Band, Psychedelic Rock)
Mixing their psychy jazz-rock with winding, jam-band style compositions, King Gizzard's first October release is a thrilling, if uneven listen. Though these songs tend to meander, it's the band's exceptional solo sections and ability to hold a tune together that keeps Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava moving along.
☆☆☆½
Like its title, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava is one highly-packed experience. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have always pulled from the worlds of jam bands and long-form Krautrock - think a mixture of CAN and Phish - but it often acted more as a supplementary part of their vast psychedelic rock and pop universe than a whole world in itself, hypnotic grooves and energetic instrumentation the support beam for whatever direction they wanted to head, fit for both Nonagon Infinity's looping garage rock and the jazzy prog-rock of Quarters. With Ice, Death, Planets..., the band seeks to give those jammy elements their own Petri dish to grow in, setting down some of their strongest grooves in years and letting the music flow naturally for as long as it takes to grow into something both beautiful and deeply imposing. The album's ideas are solid, but occasionally held back by their ambitions at the same time, these longer tracks and their emphasis on constant development leaving little breathing room and causing the album's impressive compositions to feel stuffy and, at worst, unimpactful.
At its very best, Ice, Death, Planets... is a reminder of just how powerful a band King Gizzard can be, the harsher side of their sound that has been relatively dormant the past few years coming back in the hints of acid rock and heavy psychedelia they thrown in here and there, album singles Ice V and Iron Lung incorporating bits of noisy guitar work into red-hot fusion jams that manage to be both hypnotic and deeply engaging at once with their beautiful yet technical lead guitar work surrounded by strong grooves, buoyant basslines and subtle accompaniment parts - whether you want to lose yourself in the band's world or pick apart every little element, there's something in Ice, Death, Planets... you'll love. King Gizzard settle into a certain style for all seven of these tracks, but they aren't aiming for cohesion so much as a particular template they bend and break depending on what each track needs to do, opener Mycelium brighter and sweeter than the rest of the tracks with its wah-guitar opening solo and Afrobeat-tinged kick and snare patterns while the heavy centerpiece Lava relies more on its slow dynamic build to create enough tension for the second half of the track to completely explode, but it's all within this free-flowing psychedelic mindset that hangs over the album no matter the intricacies of King Gizz's sound at any given point. Regardless, there's a lot to love about Ice, Death, Planets... and how powerfully it brings back the darker side of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard we haven't seen much of since the late 2010s.
What has held me back from fully embracing Ice, Death, Planets..., though, is that there's little breathing room and constant movement without a clear end goal, King Gizzard's solid songcraft lacking a final destination and wandering about because of it - even if they almost always sound great while doing so. These songs are dominated by their solo sections so much that the interims between them feel shockingly empty and flat even with how much is going on all the time, the album's last two tracks Iron Lung and Gliese 710 suffering especially from this as King Gizzard close Ice, Death, Planets... out with an unexpected evaporation of intensity rather than taking the music in a new direction - I honestly would have preferred if the album closed out on the thirteen minute highlight Hell's Itch considering how definite and strong it feels compared to the songs succeeding it. It's harder to get past these little hiccups than on some of the band's other releases because of how long these songs are and how few of them make up the tracklist: if you're not a fan of the way Lava or Mycelium sound from the get-go, the songs never move far enough from their starting point to pique your interest for a second time, King Gizzard sticking to their guns for an album that's both a showing of their group cohesion and one of their most enclosed projects yet.
Ice, Death, Planets... isn't a bad album, but like their other recent albums it doesn't do much to push its ideas further than what they show: these are robust, enormous psych-rock jams carried by their solo sections and mesmerizing drum grooves, but whenever things start to compress and the songs begin to feel monotonous rather than immersive there's little the band can do to pick up the pace, stuck following the same patterns and structures to keep these extended tunes from falling apart but often ending up sacrificing so much of the spontaneity and quick energy that's made many of their previous albums such a wealth of contemporary rock gratification, Ice, Death, Planets... trying to reward deep listening but without enough variation in its elements to justify that kind of focused album experience. It's just as strong as anything King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have done in the past, and none of the shortcomings Ice, Death, Planets... has get in the way of those fundamental charms.
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