L.W.

Album review

While in lockdown, the dudes in King Gizzard spent their time recording songs. No shock there since that's just about all they seem to do given the prodigious output. In fact, they made enough for two albums. Delving back into their experiments with microtonal tunings and covering some of the new ground they've explored since the release of their first excursion, 2017's Flying Microtonal Banana, K.G. was released in late 2020. While it was reliably Gizzard-y, the record didn't break much new ground and came uncomfortably close to sounding like a retread. That fact didn't bode well for the second installment culled from those lockdown sessions, but 2021's L.W. somehow succeeds in ways that K.G. didn't. Maybe it's simply that the band might have saved the better songs for this record. Almost everything here sounds like they are firing on all cylinders; whether it's the rambling road-trip rock of "East West Link," the funky clavinet jam "If Not Now, Then When?," boogie rock-adjacent "Ataraxia," or 100 mph psychedelic blowout "See Me," the band come across with more vigor and verve than they did on K.G. Even when they slow things down, like on the evil-sounding swamp rocker "O.N.E." or the medieval metal ballad "Pleura," they sound tightly wound and fierce, instead of borderline lethargic. Even the songs that sound a little more familiar than maybe they should -- "Static Electricity," for one -- have enough sparking energy to carry them across the finish line in fine style. Add in the thundering, slow-motion metal blowout that ends the album ("K.G.L.W."), and the result is one of the band's best, most engaging records. It's not just a follow-up to their first mildly disappointing venture, it's a bracing reminder of just how thrilling King Gizzard can be at their peak.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo