Some bands use improvised jam sessions to generate song ideas, and some use them to generate an entire 64-minute record from scratch. As one of the most prolific 21st century rock bands, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released 21 studio albums in their 12-year career — “Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava” being the latest. Composed of seven songs ranging from six to 14 minutes each, the Oct. 7 album is one of the most bombastic creations of King Gizzard’s career, showcasing a jaw-dropping command of all forms of rock and synthesizing the band’s history of genre-switching acrobatics.
Within King Gizzard’s hyperbolic discography, “Ice, Death” sees the band fully embrace their grandiose musical tendencies, acting as a more mature version of 2015’s four song, forty minute “Quarters!” Featuring an endless array of musical influences and individual creativity, this record is marvelous in regards to its creativity alone. “Ice, Death” builds on the musical ethos King Gizzard established with “The Dripping Tap,” the lead single from April 22, 2022’s double album, “Omnium Gatherum.” While “The Dripping Tap” was an undeniably fun 18 minutes of guitar-driven bombast, every track on “Ice, Death” is more calculated, balancing on a tightrope over a canyon of unadulterated spontaneity and controlled experimentation.
This absurd balancing act underscores the bubblegum-pink “Mycelium,” colorfully narrating the various experiences of a mushroom to the tune of modern psychedelia fused with 60s pop. King Gizzard’s persona has always resided in zanier realms, and these opening seven minutes take that identity to new extremes: frontman Stu Mackenzie delivers a high-pitched vocal performance, and Michael Cavanaugh’s subtle drum patterns form a fertile ground for a garden of flutes, horns and fuzzy guitars. The track’s light groove bleeds directly into “Ice V,” which switches up the tempo and embarks on a danceable journey about an ice comet on an apocalyptic date with Earth.
As these extended jams continue, every improvised track sounds like a fully realized idea, as though their freeform creation allowed each lava-like song exactly enough space to grow into magnificent crystals. According to Pitchfork, when King Gizzard went into the studio to record “Ice, Death,” they knew only the titles of songs and which musical mode they would be playing in. Stu Mackenzie undertook the daunting task of cutting hours-long jam sessions into coherent tracks, to which all six members of the band then added supporting instrumentation and lyrics. The seven crystalline structures that came from these recording practices each boast unique contours as a result, bursting with an instrumental flavor.
Outrageously fun tracks like “Magma” and “Lava” keep the hot streak alive with candy-coated melodic motifs, achieving similar effects of wonder despite their stark musical contrasts. “Lava” features some of the most memorable lyrics on the record, referencing the Ouroboros — a symbol of perpetual death and rebirth represented by a snake or dragon consuming its own tail — in a chant that happens to exemplify the effectiveness of King Gizzard’s no-punches-pulled approach to songwriting. Even though each song is time-consuming, the band’s musical artistry plays within that lost time to create timeless scenes in the listener’s mind.
These visions are complemented by the record’s stunning artwork — through both album covers and music videos. Jason Galea’s illustration of an amorphous comic book cosmos reflects the album’s array of science fiction imagery and its exhilarating character. King Gizzard builds on these ideas in the AI-generated music video for “Iron Lung,” which utilizes cutting-edge technology to reimagine every lyric and riff as its own trippy stream of images. “Ice V” captures the other side of King Gizzard’s music in its visual accompaniment with a 10 minute dance-party led by guitarist/bassist Joey Walker as he shamelessly grooves and dances through a seaside city, becoming a human embodiment of the song’s infectious energy. Between psychedelia and choreomania, “Ice, Death” is music that caters to that intrinsic desire to cut loose and go on a wonderful, debaucherous adventure.
No action-packed moment is wasted on “Ice, Death,” but there are songs that slightly overstay their welcome. The final track, “Gliese 710,” is a funky dirge, functioning nicely as a calmer change of pace, but it also fails to retain the liveliness that makes “Ice V” and “Mycelium” true standouts. “Hell’s Breath” pushes even the longest attention spans to the limit with its slightly repetitive 14-minute runtime, but there are still plenty of memorable passages sprinkled throughout. When one examines “Ice, Death” for weaknesses, they’re few and far between — when has a rock album structured like this ever been this fun?
Even in a storied discography 21 albums strong, “Ice, Death” is a career-defining triumph for King Gizzard. Its songs may lack strict cohesion, but the record is all the better for it, displaying a 21st century creative juggernaut in their natural habitat. These 64 minutes fly by, and with a replay value as surprising as it is irresistible, “Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava” is utterly captivating, a rock album sure to be among the best releases of 2022 when all is said and done. King Gizzard’s future is as bright as ever, and if this record is a forebear of the band’s future direction, then the 2020s are going to be a great decade for the most preposterous rock band on Earth.
