Album Review: Flight B741 by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

It's become critic cliché to point out the prolific output of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The Aussie sextet is on their 26th studio album since self-releasing their debut record, 12 Bar Bruise, in 2012, and eighth since the start of 2022. They're a difficult band to categorize because every album they release is a genre experiment: their last four records alone consist of throwback electronica (The Silver Chord), '80s-inspired thrash metal (PetroDragonic Apocalypse), lo-fi psych pop (Changes), and extended jazz-rock jams (Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava).

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After numerous high-concept records, psych-rock's super-prolific six-piece commit equally fulsomely to a "no concept" pitch here. Fast, frisky and furiously fun, Flight b741 is the righteous result of two weeks in the studio, "winging it" - says Stu Mackenzie - on cheap equipment. One shaping influence is late 60s/early 70s American rock, with The Band as guiding lights for lift-off as Mirage City arrives in a whine of feedback and a brisk display of joy in virtuosity.

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Do the members of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard play Dungeons & Dragons on their seemingly never-ending tours? They feel like they probably play Dungeons & Dragons (as a tabletop nerd, I mean that in the nicest possible way). Not only would that provide some additional context for their proggy aesthetic and the title of their 2016 breakthrough, Nonagon Infinity, it might just be the only credible explanation for how the Australian six-piece begins each new record: roll a D100 on a chart, pick a new genre to explore. The transition from the shiny space rock and synth-pop of last year's The Silver Chord to the country-fried faux-Americana of Flight b741 would be jarring for most bands, but it makes sense in the context of King Gizz's sprawling discography.

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Only three things are inevitable in life: death, taxes, and yet another album from tireless Aussie psych-lords King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Newest release 'Flight b741' is their 26th, and just as with every release from the six-piece is entirely unpredictable - after a broad arc of increasingly theatrical albums, 'Flight b741' instead charts a course back to their origins, with a series of no-nonsense riffs played with the gusto of classic rock and the energy of garage punk. There are some all-time moments for the band, like the T.

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