PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Without doing any actual research, I would assume that more often than not, a band’s debut album is where most of us start listening to a band. A debut album often takes years to make, the culmination of songs written and crafted with long-time school friends into a cohesive whole. But maybe you missed their first record, or they hadn’t found their groove yet, so it’s their sophomore record that really hooked you. There are some stellar third albums out there that have gotten me hooked – Radiohead’s OK Computer comes to mind. But never, and I mean never has it taken until a band’s 24th and 25th album for me to finally notice them. But King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are anything but typical.

I’ve known of King Gizzard for a long time, mostly thanks to a couple of good friends who have continually tried to convince me that this crazy group of Australians who are saddled with the somewhat negative label “jam band” are actually good. Pete and Ryan — I hereby declare that you were right. I’m sorry to have ever doubted you. Hailing from Melbourne, the band is made up of six multi-instrumentalists: Stu Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Joey Walker, Cook Craig, Lucas Harwood, and Michael Cavanagh, all of whom sing in addition to playing too many different instruments to name.

The band has only been around since 2010 and they released their first album in 2012. 24 albums in the following 11 years and it’s clear they are in desperate need of an editor. They are a jam band unlike any other. The genres listed on their wikipedia page are quite varied: psych rock, garage rock, prog rock, and heavy metal, just to name a few.

Let’s look at the two stellar albums they’ve released this year. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is a heavy metal album “about humankind, and it’s about planet Earth, but it’s also about witches and dragons, and shit,” according to Mackenzie. This is the album that finally hooked me. The song “Gila Monster,” shown in the video above, is the best song from the album, but it is a head-banging, prog-rock masterpiece that would feel at home in any Tool fan’s collection. The Silver Cord, a true “double album” — with a standard version that runs 28 minutes and an extended version that has longer versions of the same seven songs runs 88 minutes. That’s nearly two hours of music, not that I’m counting. But where PetroDragonic Apocalypse has multiple guitars blaring at every turn, the electropop album The Silver Cord doesn’t have a single guitar on it. This album feels much more like an Animal Collective record. Much like Taylor Swift and her Swifties, the band loves to plant easter eggs and other puzzles within their music, creating a running thread of conspiracy theories and lore throughout their fandom. These two albums are no different – despite sounding wholly different, they are meant to be complementary, a yin and yang. The extended version songs on Cord feature direct callbacks to songs from Apocalypse.

I love a band that is clearly having the most fun doing what they do. Watch the video above for “Gila Monster,” or the other two videos they’ve released from these two albums, for “Dragon” and a three-song “Theia/The Silver Cord/Set,” and you’ll see how ridiculous they can be. They’re very over the top, and everybody knows it. But when you produce fantastic music, people are willing to accept a large amount of ridiculousness from your orbit (again, much like Taylor Swift).

What really sold me on the band was getting to experience them live in late spring 2023. The repeated listenings of Apocalypse and some choice records from their discography in the buildup to the show; the buzz of the fans before, during and after the show despite the torrential downpour for most of it, and even the unexpected early cutoff that clearly angered the band (speakers were cut at 9pm sharp – I guess the band missed that part of the contract when they signed up to play at a farm not accustomed to entertaining thousands of blissed-out showgoers) – all of it culminated in one of the most memorable show-going experiences I’ve ever had.

I get to see them at the Gorge later this year, in late September, where in the past I’ve experienced thunderstorms and extreme winds, blistering heat and bitter cold – who knows what is in store? But I know it’s going to be amazing, and I just can’t wait.