king-gizzard

Listen to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's pop-oriented new album 'Butterfly 3000'

Three things come to mind instantly when I think of Australia’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: they are wildly prolific (2017 saw five albums), they are an incredible, indefatigable live band, and there doesn’t seem to be a genre they’re afraid to try on for an album. While early records were decidedly Oh Sees-style garage-psych, King Gizzard have dabbled in metal, Eastern microtonal music, shuffling glam and more. Butterfly 3000, which they just dropped without sharing any pre-release music, at first seems to be their biggest left turn yet, driving straight into festival friendly indiepop. Every song is in a major key, guitar riffage takes a backseat to bright synthesizer arpeggiations, tempos slow to optimal mass-arm-waving speeds, and choruses are bigger and more immediate.

The more you listen, though, the more the inner Gizzard-ness of it all starts to emerge across these 10 interconnected tracks with a few recurring musical motifs. The band are still using cyclical riffs and mirroring them with vocal melodies, still driving things with motorik rhythms (just a little slower), and the shouts are still exuberant “Woo!s” that are far from Millennial Whoop territory. You could imagine earworm head-bobbers “Interior People” and “Catching Smoke” working as more traditional KG jammers, but the verdant, electronic production feels more like their natural habitat. King Gizzard are populating a world and Butterfly 3000 is just one of the many subspecies.

The album’s artwork, by the way, is one of those old-school 3D images you have to cross your eyes to see. Check that out and the album, below.

As for how these songs will translate live, we’ll have to wait a bit: King Gizzard’s tour got rescheduled to 2022.

cover King Gizzard The Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000