King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava
By Emy Gladden
Photo credits: google photos
Top Tracks: Gliese 710, Iron Lung, Magma
Australian psychedelic fusion band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are one of the most diverse and prolific acts of today, releasing multiple albums a year and almost constantly touring. In April 2022 after the release of Omnium Gatherum King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announced that they were planning to release three more albums before the end of the year, that September they announced that all three of those albums were going to be released in October. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava on October 7th, Laminated Denim on October 12th, and Changes on October 28th. This marks 2022 as the second time they have released five albums in one year.
Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava. The album has a name which from an outside perspective may seem like a can of alphabet soup fell on the floor, but in actuality it references the greek mode scales in which all the songs are written in: Ionian (Mycelium), Dorian (Ice V), Phrygian (Magma), Lydian (Lava), Mixolydian (Hell’s Itch), Aeolian (Iron Lung), and Locrian (Gliese 710). Each song was taken from an extended jam in these modes, and after editing down the tracks and recording the vocals we see the results in the final album versions of each song. This method of songwriting resulted in Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava having on average the longest songs out of all of their records that don’t have song length as a part of the concept (Quarters with each song at 10:10, and Made In Timeland and Laminated Denim with each song at 15:00.)
The use of different modes gives each track its own distinct style and feel despite them all being structured similarly with blistering solos and catchy melodies, the complexity of the jams really goes to show the chemistry that the band has from the years of touring the world together.
These jams are among the most fun and energetic the band has to offer, encapsulated by the album’s lead single “Ice V” and its accompanying music video portraying guitarist Joey Walker walking and dancing around a city in Greece. The vocals prove to be some of the catchiest in the band’s catalog, I find myself walking around campus singing to myself “Ganymede princess” and “It’s a different kind of cuttlefish” nearly everyday. There was little time for these songs to sink in however, and it was only five days until they released their 2nd album of October and 4th album of 2022, Laminated Denim.
