Whether you have 23 versions of Polygondwanaland or never opened the doors to Nonagon, this is every King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard album ranked.
are to us now what The Grateful Dead were to the ’70s – dauntingly prolific, lyrically inspired, and outrageously reckless in their musical excursions. And if you ask me, they’re just getting started. Despite a swathe poly of early criticisms, The Grateful Dead released 18 albums in 14 years and defied censure as they uncapped seemingly one-dimensional genres with endlessly explorative modal interplay and telepathic space jams.
The lynchpin to their success, however, was a formidable dedication to touring and perfecting their craft, both on stage and off. They struck out on the road and cut their teeth playing free shows to earn a religiously loyal cult following. Now, 50 years on, King Gizz carry the flame, inexhaustibly pursuing perfection and simply not giving a f*ck. Now let’s crack open the vault and attempt to impose some hierarchy upon the Gizzverse.
23. Butterfly 3001 (2022)
King Gizzard followed up their synth-pop album and decided to rewrite and remix it, giving the album that psychedelic edge that it was missing. With this album being 21 tracks long there is sure to be a version of the one of the songs that you will like better than its original.
Best Track: Black Hot Soup (DJ Shadow “My Own Reality” Re-Write)
22. Oddments (2014)
While there are some killer tracks,Oddments ultimately feels fractured and jarred. While that is clearly stated in the title, throwing a bunch of B-Sides together before they get left behind doesn’t really stand as an album concept.
Despite its shortcomings, this is the most delightfully pop-leaning Gizz record to date, hinting at an alternate reality wherein the paths split and they became the modern answer to The BeachBoys, rather than The Dead.
Fear not! The cohesive album experience is something they soon mastered… many times over.
Best track:Work This Time
21. Live In San Franciso ’16 (2020)
They returned with another live album for fans to live vicariously through. With gigs nowhere insight, they decided to give their fans another taste of what to look forward to after the pandemic ends, by sharing their electrifying performance at their 2016 San Francisco show.
Best Track: I’m In Your Mind Fuzz
20. Omnium Gatherum (2022)
Coming back to their psychedelic rock roots, this album showcases the band’s pure unfiltered energy – something that was lacking in their previous releases this year. With a blend of pure chaos and moments of dream-like synths, this album could be considered chaotic, with each track seeming to be divorced from each other in sound.
Best Track: The Dripping Tap
19. Butterfly 3000 (2021)
This album has often been described as more melodic than psychedelic. Butterfly 3000 sees them entering the realm of synth-pop with frontman Stu stating that his influence for this album was his daughter, and how he saw himself as wrapped in a cocoon before her birth, and the butterfly being the perfect motif to encapsulate the record – but probably not some of their most genre bending and defying work to date.
Best Track: Shanghai
18. Gumboot Soup (2017)
Another album of fragments,Gumboot Soupwas a last-minute effort to come good on the madman promise made by Stu Mackenzie in 2017. A run that would later be hailed as ‘Year Of The Gizz’ saw some of the outfit’s strongest releases to date.
Much like this list’s previous entry, the listening experience is sporadic but the songwriting is significantly superior.
Best track: Beginner’s Luck
17. Chunk Shrapnel (2020)
In the pits of lockdown they wasted no time in giving their fans a new release to sink their teeth into, and get to re-experience killer King Gizzard live shows from home. This album saw them bring in live audio from their 2019 European shows, as well as original intermission songs perfectly placed in between a section of live audio – giving us a quick second to recuperate from our at home moshing.
Best Track: Planet B
16. Bar Bruise
While it was likely a welcome uppercut at the time, 12 Bar Bruisepales in hindsight to the band’s entire catalogue. The entire tracklisting has been left behind in live shows and feels awfully derivative of John Dwyer’s early sonic template. Funnily enough, Oh Sees have come to embrace more Gizz elements now with The 12″ Synth.
Nonetheless, it is an important document in Gizz’s history and shows all the signs of a band hungry as a half-starved balrog.
Best track: Muckcracker
15. L.W (2021)
L.W. was the much awaited companion album to their 2020 release K.G. which was a release they came out swinging on, with further exploration of microtones and pushing the boundaries of psychedelic rock. However, the further you listen to this album the more I feel they played it safe compared to their other releases.
Best Track: If Not Now, Then When?
14. Eyes Like The Sky (2013)
King Gizzard’s misfit masterpiece,Eyes Like The Sky, is a singularity. A gritty Western concept album narrated by Ambrose’s father, Broderick Smith, has become a coveted collector’s item amongst Gizzheads.
It cannot be found on Spotify and has famously only been played once in full at Melbourne’s Gizzfest, 2018. Thus it goes without saying, if you hear one of these songs live you’ve won the lottery.
Inspired by My 32 Years Among the Indians and Richard Dodge, Eyes Like The Skyis a sleeper hit and an early indication of Stu’s unhinged creative potential.
Best track: Eyes Like The Sky
13. Infest The Rats’ Nest (2019)
King Gizz once again shocked fans in 2019 when they time travelled back to 1991 and became Metallica. While the outfit are no strangers to getting heavy, Infest The Rats’ Nest plays out like more of a metal tribute album than a work dressed in originality.
Despite its nods to the past, the lyrical themes lean confidently into the future. Undoubtedly King Gizz’s most politically-minded work to date, the subject of ecological destruction is something we will likely see the band embrace further this new decade.
Best track: Self-Immolate
12. K.G (2020)
King Gizzard returned with their 16th studio album, but this time they released it from their very own label – nothing screams going King Gizzard more than this release, back with their well known but still ever experimental psychedelic rock sound. But have no fear K.G is only part one of their release – yes of course they cannot have an album also named after the Lizard Wizard.
Best Track: Intrasport
11. Fishing For Fishies (2019)
Breaking one year of studio silence, King Gizz returned to their grove-blues roots with Fishies For Fishies,a remarkably charming record and likely their most accessible. Cyboogie smote the internet with ‘RoboStu’ and the pleasantly innocent title track.
If anything it served as a red herring to make the arrival of Rats’ Nest all the more mind-shattering. Another testament to the versatility of Stu Mackenzie leading us to believe he must be the world’s most lovable bipolar genius.
Best track:Cyboogie
10. Murder Of The Universe
The album that opened the door the Gizzverse,Murder Of The Universeis the band’s most ambitious concept album yet and it very nearly lands on four feet. While Leah Senior’s deadpan spoken word is a nice counterweight to the sonic freneticism, it ultimately feels overdone and truncated, sounding more like Allan Watts with Tourettes than an omniscient creator.
Despite its minor shortcomings – it came in the middle of 2017 for god’s sake – Murder Of The Universebirthed some of Gizz’s finest rock tunes. Altered BeastandLord Of Lightning are sludgy ingots of golden psychedelic gloop, which now serve as a fitting sonic conduit to the Rats’ Nest material in their live performances.
Best track:Lord Of Lightning
9. Paper Maché Dream Balloon (2015)
In 2015, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard defied expectations with Quarters!a groove-driven concept album of lush, Dead-esque jams. A far cry from Mind Fuzz, they threw yet another curveball by dropping an entirely acoustic disc of folk bliss.
Bitter Boogie andSensehave become sacred texts for those under the tutelage of Gizz scholars, and it’s the first record to feature Stu busting out some Aqualung on the flute. Essential listening for anyone looking to sail smoothly into the turbulent sea of Gizz.
Best track: Sense
8. Sketches of Brunswick East (2017)
King Gizzard’s only collaboration album, Sketches Of Brunswick East,is a jazz-prog nod to their hometown. Experimenting with tapes and loops, Stu created a woozy breeze through a tipsy Summer haze.
Mild High Club lynchpin Alexander Brettin brings the crux of jazz here making for a more or less jazz-inspired album. Unsurprisingly, it’s the perfect album to get mildly high too. Sketches would be higher it wasn’t for the sheer quality of rest of their work.
Best Track: The Book
7. Float Along – Fill Your Lungs (2013)
Largely known for its behemoth opener, Head On/Pill is a holy grail amongst hardcore fans and is the moment that Gizz became, well, Gizz. The 16-minute leviathan begins as a fuzzed-out, snake-charmer before blasting off into the stratosphere from which the band never returned.
Its glaring omission from setlists have elevated it to the reverence of The Grateful Dead’s Darkstar,making the recently released Live In Adelaide ’19charity album all the more precious.
Trivia note: TheHead On/Pillmedley closesLive In Adelaide ’19features Mildlife’s Adam Halliwell on flute.
Best track:Head On/Pill
6. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava (2022)
With this release being recorded over the space of one week, this album focuses more on the jazz fusion, and each band member improvising every day with different tempos and musical keys. It is definitely a more cohesive album compared to their previous release Omnium Gatherum.
Best Track: Magma
5. Flying Microtonal Banana (2017)
Refusing to rest on their laurels, Gizz delved into quarter tones in 2017 for an epic krautrock exploration on Flying Microtonal Banana. The magnificent Rattlesnakebrushes the surface of the mainstream as they barrel down the desert road. Never has a track been more appropriate for the vibraslap.
Sleepdrifter,Open Water,andNuclear Fusionare all a welcome step up from the muddy depths of 2016’s Nonagon and push the band’s songwriting. A blueprint for krautrock mastery that will no doubt survive the next 50 years,Flying Microtonal Bananais top-notch work. Rattlesnake! Rattlesnake! Rattlesnake!
Best track: Rattlesnake
4. Quarters! (2015)
Besides the endlessly groovy opener,The River,the other tracks onQuarters!merely live to serve the album’s concept. This is a minor fault in an otherwise faultless album, however, because the opening track is so ridiculously sublime it carries the rest on its shoulders.
Plus who doesn’t love a blissed-out jam track?Lonely Steel Sheet Flyerand God Is In The Rhythm are exceptional pieces of Gizz wizardry and perfectly fill out the corners of a most beloved record.
Best track:The River
3. Nonagon Infinity (2016)
I still remember rocketing down a remote highway the first time I heard Nonagon Infinity open the door and my mind is still splattered on the tarmac. The infinite loop of psych-punk perfection is absolutely on the money from start to finish.
No crap, no bullsh*t. Just a one-way ticket through sonic hell and we are never jumping the carriage. FromRobo Stopto People Vultures,the serpentlike septet tapped into some seriously potent stuff while in the Nonagon portal. A truly precious album.
Best track: People Vultures
2. I’m In Your Mind Fuzz (2014)
If King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard ever made a greatest hits album this would be it. Her and I, Hot Water, Cellophaneand the Mind Fuzz medley, are all magnificently throttling and magnificently Gizz.
No work has so triumphantly endured Gizz’s many setlist changes or sparked as many moshpits as Mind Fuzz. The soundworld is a perfect blend of garage and psych with phasers, filter sweeps, distortion, whipcrack delays and plenty of Stu’s “Eeeeeeeyup’s” filling in the gaps. It also presents some of the band’s most singable melodies. Quintessential Gizz.
Best track: Cellophane
1.Polygondwanaland (2017)
In terms of cohesive soundscapes and songwriting chops, Polygondwanaland tops the lot. It’s a masterpiece of maximalism and one helluva ride from start to finish. No other album so readily waits to transport upon its unfolding.
Sure it might not feature as many of their psych-pop classics, but as one cohesive artwork, Polygondwanalandtakes the cake. From the monolithic, almost operatic Crumbling Castle,this is Gizz songwriting at its most advanced. Every section and part has purpose, building the tension to near biblical proportions as you are drawn into their mad Aztec ritual.
Inner Cellflaunts gorgeous melodies amidst the madness, contrastingLoyaltywith its fluttering flute led coda and Stu’s haunting lyric, “I will draw and quarter all their children/Just to prove I’m not a coward”.A dazzling bookend comes inFourth Colourwith its explosive hocket choruses and lightning-fast riffs.
Furthermore, the genius release strategy – falling in-step with Radiohead’s In Rainbows – breathed potent and uncontrollable life into the album. Yet this time they took it a step further. Aside from mirroring the cheapening of physical media by streaming services, King Gizzard gave fans and labels complete autonomy over their music and its release structure. The result was an unlimited number of versions and covers, with the most intriguing being a charmingly ’90s chiptune re-imagining in 8-bit. A veritable wet dream for collectors.
While the top end of this list will invariably differ amongst Gizz fans, it’s safe to assume that every album is worthy, one way or another, of the crown that sits atop the head of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard as they charge onwards.
Best track:The Fourth Colour
Update: New Album – Laminated Denim
Just yesterday, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard unleashed their 22nd studio album, Laminated Denim.The album consists of two dynamic and hypnotising 15-minute tracks, The Land Before Time andHypertension. King Gizz shared via Instagram that the LP was “created out of long improvised jams,” which just goes to show how talented they are as musicians and as a band!
With Laminated Denim now out for the world to hear, this marks their fifth album release this year. In even more exciting news, the psych-rock collective plan to release even more music this month! You’d best believe we’ll be counting down the days until its finally Friday, October 28, when yet another new album will grace their stellar catalogue.
