King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Nonagon Infinity

There may be reference points aplenty throughout Nonagon Infinity and its creators make-up but King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard sure know how to put their own spin on things. And in doing so have created their finest body of work to date.

There is a sense of urgency to this latest offering, as if last year’s fey and breezy LP Paper Mâché Dream Balloon acted as a process of blissed-out creative rehab.

A whirling dervish of an album, and a culmination of all their previous hard work, Nonagon Infinity is the sound of a band at their wigged out best.

Nonagon Infinity’s sound is bordering on the extraterrestrial - it sounds like they’ve given kautrock an intense, life-threatening electric shock, while simultaneously floating through 41 minutes (or your entire lifetime, dare you interrupt the endless loop) with the elegance and unpredictability of a kite in the sky.

With unprecedented urgency and a heaviness that King Gizzard have never quite served up before, Nonagon Infinity is no doubt an attention snagging experiment, but despite being a calculated novelty, it never feels like a gimmick.

When it’s running at peak velocity—which is like, 90 per cent of the time—Nonagon Infinity yields some of the most outrageous, exhilarating rock ‘n’ roll in recent memory, on par with modern psych-punk touchstones like Comets on Fire’s Blue Cathedral, Thee Oh Sees’ Carrion Crawler/The Dream and Ty Segall’s Slaughterhouse.

If Tame Impala-offshoot Pond forgot to take their Ritalin, they’d probably end up making something like this.

At first, it seemed as if King Gizzard’s stylistic motifs weren’t meant to be taken that seriously, but on their latest, Nonagon Infinity, the band wear their idiosyncrasies loud and proud.