The devil works hard, but Stu Mackenzie and his Gizzard gang work harder. On June 10, Australian heavy hitter King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard put out its 18th — yes, 18th — studio album since its debut in 2012. “Butterfly 3000” boasts ten tracks that bring the boys back to their roots in psychedelia, but with a twist. From the cover to the content, the LP is an echo chamber of kaleidoscopic spaciness, but not in Gizzard’s usual vein.
The tracks on this album live in a universe where synthesizer is king and where city pop aesthetics marry the best parts of the 80s. This album definitely takes an electric pop direction, something only seen at times from the band. A nine year lifetime is impressive for any band; and to have albums turn over this rapidly from a big group (six shredders currently) and only one lineup change in its history (I miss you Eric Moore) is unheard of. The guys seem to do what no one else dares, and their sound stands alone as proof of that.
Album opener “Yours” shows the band is as clean as it’s ever been. For lack of a better word, this opener brings a bit of jazzercise in the percussion, throwing it into a parallel universe where the psychedelic rock craze never died, it simply passed through the decades and met the early 80s — this being the good 80s, not the 80s that was on your moms’ driving playlist. This track doesn’t feel extremely Gizz until the outro, where the rawness of the acoustic guitar met with the slew of wind instruments throws the listener down a rabbit hole — in the best way possible. Take us away, Mr. Mackenzie, and into the rest of the album.
Track two, “Shanghai,” keeps the energy of “Yours” in the sense that it prompts a feeling of release. It keeps the listener grounded, even though the song itself feels like it’s being played from a vantage point higher than anyone can reach — and somehow makes you feel like you’re inside of an old Atari in a pretty unexplainable way. There’s some John Gourley of Portugal. The Man realness added in the vocals, and the chime of the flutes gives serious Led Zeppelin “IV” vibes, while still being unmistakably KG.
Only two songs into the album, the album concept is evident, and any consumer of these Aussies knows they will ride a concept and see it through.
The fourth track, “Blue Morpho,” is the most creepy and unnatural on the whole album. It takes the word blue really seriously, giving the song’s atmosphere an eerie 2008 “Twilight” tint — but in a much less teeny bopper way. The next track, “Interior People,” is where the band most obviously taps back into its latest albums “K.G.” and “L.W.” It explores the Middle Eastern sounds that make the songs pop. This song is a huge high point of instrumentation on the album — with dense single key punches that resonate a behind-the-scenes buzz, pulling the whole thing together.
The length of these songs is in no way radio friendly, with the shortest track hitting 2:51, but the album feels much more radio friendly than anything King Gizzard has put out before. Not to say accessibility is a bad thing, but the two most recent album releases were pretty edged out and niche. This feels like a step no one could have predicted, in a direction more open to those who aren’t King Gizzard fans. Pretentious as this may be, there’s something to be said about an album that is rough on the first few listens: an album that you have to grow to understand in order to enjoy. “Butterfly 3000” was instantly easy to grasp.
People who dug the opium den feelings from “Sketches of Brunswick East” or the dungeon metal Akira moment from “Murder of The Universe” may complain about the pop shift; this shift toward pop was bolder and more intentional than if the band strived for something harder to grasp. With no singles preceding the LP’s drop, the new sound surely threw audiences for a loop. That in itself makes this album’s sound shift just as risky and out there as something unlistenable. The whole pop effort is tied up in some of the closing lyrics from the title track: “Hope you can see the beauty within the grim world’s ugly mess.”
“Butterfly 3000” doesn’t scratch the surface of the most out-there King Gizzard. But, in having a shockingly more mainstream appeal, it proves that the band can seriously do it all. Dare I say this is King Gizzard’s strongest album since 2017? The album went forward with more vision and streamlined qualities throughout it than anything we’ve gotten from the band in years.