By Max Filter

Any discussion of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard in 2023 requires some context. After all, The Silver Cord marks the band’s 25th full length release in twelve years, and their 7th in the past two years. The extremely prolific Australian six-piece is known to span genres from psychedelic rock to acid house to thrash metal to jazz and back again, sometimes all within the same album. Simply announcing new music is enough to send the rumor mill into a frenzy; the possibilities are quite literally endless. If there is one thing that fans can count on from this band, it is to expect the unexpected.

“It’s liberating to terrify yourself,” frontman Stu Mackenzie says in a recent press release. “I really believe in that as a philosophy. It’s always been part of our DNA. It’s something we’ve always done, putting ourselves in a position where the cortisol kicks in, pushing ourselves off the bridge and forcing ourselves to swim.” With that minidset, King Gizzard set out to accomplish something they hadn’t done before; release a proper electronic album. While 2021’s Butterfly 3000 relied heavily on synthesizers, the sessions were recorded during the pandemic when the band was unable to be in the same room and were more out of necessity than design. This time around the group filled their studio space with a veritable army of vintage synthesizers acquired during their travels around the world and dedicated themselves to jamming out the new songs with each other in real-time. 

The goal was to take the improvisation-based collective writing approach that produced 2023’s PetroDragonicApocalypse and 2022’s Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava and apply it to a style and instrumentation that placed them far outside their comfort zone. “We come at electronic music from an amateur angle,” acknowledges Mackenzie “but I wanted to be at peace with being the rock band pretending to know how to use modular synthesizers.” The result is an impressive amalgamation of decades of electronic decadence. Clear influences from Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder are present, but so are touches of 90’s breakbeat stalwarts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, hints of synth glory a la The Flaming Lips and M83, and lyrical cues from unlikely sources such as Rob Zombie and The Beastie Boys. Yet somehow through all of this, the sound is still instantly recognizable as King Gizzard. Tackling themes as wide ranging as angry gods and legendary heroes, a broken (or lost?) connection with the Divine, and the death and rebirth of our world, The Silver Cord strives to instill a sense of cosmic wonder while keeping your feet close enough to the earth to be able to dance.

Not content to simply release one version of the album (and drawing further inspiration from Giorgio Moroder and his extended singles with Donna Summers) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard present the seven songs on The Silver Cord in two arrangements: a standard version that clocks in just shy of 30 minutes, and an “Extended Mix” that explodes the album to a whopping 90 minutes. “The first version’s really condensed, trimming all the fat,” says Mackenzie. By no means is the shorter version inferior, however. The 30 minute mix of the album is tightly arranged, fast paced, and loaded with catchy beats and choruses. It also, incidentally, may be more approachable to newer fans of the band who are already understandably overwhelmed by the massive back catalog. (It is worth mentioning for the KGLW completists that the vinyl edition of the standard mix comes with three exclusive tracks that you won’t find anywhere else; “Space Junk,” “Plasma,” and “Embryo.”)

If the standard mix is for the uninitiated (or those without 90 minutes to spare), the “Extended Mix” delivers everything that a diehard fan could hope for. Using the full outtakes from the jam sessions that produced these songs might be something that a normal band would save for an anniversary reissue. King Gizzard instead uses the opportunity to increase the breadth of the sonic tapestry they’ve woven and add to their already prodigious mythos. The extended instrumental sections afforded to each track show the band pushing the boundaries of their self-imposed digital constraints, leaving no knob unturned in the search for beautiful and terrifying frequencies. Yet more than just the music has been expanded. As each track runs into uncharted territory, additional lyrics begin to not only cross-reference other songs on the album but also hint at connections between The Silver Cord and the seven songs on the thrash metal doomsday concept album PetroDragonicApocalypse released earlier this year. While The Silver Cord lacks the clear narrative throughline of its predecessor, the thematic similarities are not hard to see. One by one the songs name drop their respective predecessors on PetroDragonicApocalypse, circling back and providing a mysterious link between both albums that will have the GizzVerse acolytes frantically updating their conspiracy theory mood boards. 

Ultimately, the message that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is sending through their music isn’t a secret; they’re an amazingly hardworking group of musicians and songwriters actively improving their skills at every turn with no signs of slowing down. Although this may be a “lighter” year in terms of release schedules for one of the most prodigious bands on the planet, fans should be extremely happy to see them focusing on new avenues of exploration, challenging themselves at every turn, and taking the time to dig deep into fresh ideas. Especially when the results are as satisfying as this.