It wouldn’t really be a musical “year” unless we got some sort of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard album, and now we have their 27th—my god—with Phantom Island. Now this album is, of course, a new flavour for the Australian psych rockers who essentially try and reinvent themselves with every album, but I’ll admit I haven’t really kept up with Gizzard since 2022’s Changes—and I can only really think of one song from that album now. You see, this becomes the problem when you have so much music and try to be the most prolific band on the planet, all your music gets lost in the sauce of the ages.
Regardless, Phantom Island is King Gizz’s orchestral rock album; think ELO, a bit of Bowie, even Dire Straits, and when this mishmash hits, like on the self-titled opener, it really hits. The horns, flutes, bassoon addition gives an infectious groove on “Deadstick” but sometimes, it comes off a bit try-hard, like the band was like “we want to really sound like ELO here,” on the track “Panpsych,” for example or really like Bowie on “Spacesick.” I think if someone were to pick this album up without any knowledge of King Gizzard, they might think it was from a lost jam band from the ’70s, but I’m going in knowing they have 26 more albums and for some reason it just really irks me.
The band is definitely adept in the studio at conjuring their influences and being pretty close to on the money, but why wouldn’t I just go back to the classics? I think I will.
