King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Infest the Rats’ Nest (From the Vault)
hey folks, welcome to some discography reviews. i’ve been writing music reviews for some friends in a discord server for a few years now in various forms, but i figured i’d like to get them all in a more centralized space, so here we are! this first series of reviews is a review of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s discography, starting in 2011 with Willoughby’s Beach and running right into 2021 with Butterfly 3000. this review was originally written in September 2021.
next up is the second album of 2019, and it’s a fairly large difference in tone (if not thematic material) – the significantly heavier Infest the Rats’ Nest:
the album kicks off with two songs i had heard prior to the record, Planet B and Mars For the Rich. upon originally hearing the, i had liked the subject matter and thought the music was appropriate, but wasn’t huge on the style. i had enjoyed Mars a little better but Planet B has that killer chorus. upon review, those opinions still hold – this is a good style to explore this kind of grim speculative sci-fi (this is uh… pretty close future lol). the music is tight, and dense, and extremely intense, again, very appropriate for the themes. Mars For the Rich still pulls ahead between these two tracks. Planet B has some blistering licks and some great energy, but MFtR has that sick guitar rhythm that’s just juicy. Organ Farmer aint for me. the music feels a little too oppressive with little that speaks to me. appropriate for the lyrical content, but still. Superbug bounces right back tho, love that kinda laid back, sinister guitar chug. i like the guitar melody that plays after the chorus too. i dig the play with titles for the Venusian tracks – listening to KGLW’s discog like this id expect its a movement split into pieces, like Sketches did, but it ends up being closer to the Altered Beast pieces, where they aren’t directly connected but are a part of a larger narrative. but here, they’re named 1 and 2 after the ships rather than how the other tracks got named. its a little silly but it made me happy to realize. i ADORE the VE – NU – SI – AN – ONE chants, its something ive like, the Protomen do in some of their narrative tracks and the effect is CHILLING and SICK. Perihelion is a track i dig the chorus for but don’t have many other strong feelings. this is also close to where i kind started relying on meta discussion to keep a closer track on the narrative, which aint the worst thing but feels a bit weak, esp on the closing tracks. Venusian 2 is solid for sure continues the sick guitar work, and i esp like the drumming as it develops in the second half of the track. Self-Immolate is nice, which is a funny sentence to type. Hell is a great closer. absolutely love the driving pace of this one.
faves – Mars For the Rich, Hell
dislikes – Organ Farmer
on the whole, i liked this album significantly more than i expected and a lot more than my first few listens. i think this album is strongest narratively – the heavy, intense music calls back to parts of Murder of the Universe and fit with this grim, dystopian view of the future, and the ideas, climate death on earth, exploitation, desperation and death closing in from all angles, closing on a promise of vengeance, its very good and im super on board. and on that note, i feel like KGLW have been playing in this space for a while, an album length narrative, told via and through song, and i think this is their strongest version of that premise. with sequencing, i feel like this album puts a lot forward up front, with the rebels’ stories a little weaker than the openers. vocally i went back and forth, there are a few tracks i liked the effect on the vocals, a few tracks i didn’t love it.
i think at the end of the day, this is an album i really enjoyed dissecting and digging into, but largely isn’t my style – id have to be in a particular mood or craving a particular level of grimness or this heavy of a vibe. i will say i’ll probably come back to this more than MotU. a lot of the songs work a lot better both in terms of how they stand on their own, but i can also get into the energy of the tracks a lot better.
Infest the Rats’ Nest – 6/10
next time we return to microtonal tuning with K.G.!
support the band by buying this record on Bandcamp
first: Willoughby’s Beach | previous: Fishing For Fishies | next: K.G.
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