King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Sketches of Brunswick East ALBUM REVIEW

Photo credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KGATLW/comments/
6o03x2/artwork_for_sketches_of_brunswick_east/

It's been one year since my last music review of any kind, the last album review being of Australian garage rock septet King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's triumphant, lo-fi opus Nonagon Infinity, which I absolutely loved. And in these twelve short intervening months, King Gizzard have given us three more albums, with allegedly two more to come by the end of the year. So, to say Stu Mackenzie and his cadre of musical miscreants have had a busy year would definitely be an understatement.

Not to mention they found time to make their American television debut on Conan in April!
Photo credit:https://livemusicblog.com/2017/04/18/watch-king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-the-lord-of-lightning-live-on-conan-4-17-17/

In February, we got the first of this year's releases, Flying Microtonal Banana, an album billed as an experiment in microtonal compositions. The songs were enjoyable enough, especially "Open Water" and lead single "Rattlesnake," but the microtonal aspect of the music really served as a melodic flavor served over King Gizzard's standard minor pentatonic blues fare rather than a compositionally defining characteristic of the music harmonically. It was a good album, but just not the most memorable or musically diverse project in their discography.

Next, in June, came the much hyped and quite polarizing Murder of the Universe. It served as both a narrative and musical sequel to Nonagon Infinity, sharing a large amount of the lyrical ideas, defining melodies, and rhythmic motifs of its 2016 sister. The main turn off for many people was the heavy, heavy use of spoken word throughout each song of the album. Myself, I felt like it was at times definitely too much, but at other points, particularly on the last third of the album, I felt the spoken word really added a lot, giving the music a unique and memorable angle. Either way, it certainly helped King Gizzard tell (and I think finish?) the story told on Nonagon Infinity and started on 2014's I'm In Your Mind Fuzz. 

Now onto Sketches of Brunswick East. Given how incredibly dense Murder of the Universe was, I think all of us King Gizzard listeners--both those who loved that album and those who didn't--needed a cleansing of our palates and a change of pace. This year's third album for King Gizzard (and their 11th overall), Sketches of Brunswick East, provides just that. Far removed from the megaton-heavy, blistering, psych rock marathons that were Nonagon and Murder, Sketches of Brunswick East is a breezy, lazy, jazzy stroll through a cartoon version of the 60's. The white-hot distortion of the guitars is traded in for a clean, bright tone. The arena-sized, doomsaying organs are swapped with sunny, meandering jazz keys. And even frontman Stu trades his woops and hollers and ominous lyrics for a more breathy, sing-songy approach. In fact, it's such a 180 from those previous albums that I think a lot of new listeners unversed in King Gizzard's past genre-switching acrobatics might not ever guess they're the same band.

And to be fair, they're kinda not the same band this time around, since Sketches is a collaborative project with fellow Aussie musician Alexander Brettin, the sole member of Mild High Club (I guess no one else wanted to join). According to the band, Sketches was born when Alex once crashed at Stu Mackenzie's place for a few weeks late last year and started hashing out some song ideas. They picked it back up later by sending each other more snippets or sketches of songs (get it??) via iPhone and which were later fleshed out into this album.

This organic, loose creative process definitely shows on Sketches of Brunswick East, in that the whole record flows together like one big jam session (slash) dream sequence, which often works very well, but at times doesn't. For instance, the opening track "Sketches of Brunswick East I" is a jammy little theme song for the record. It's enjoyable enough the first time, but then it's more or less copy and pasted to make the later tracks, "Sketches of Brunswick East II" and "III." And generally speaking, the instrumental tracks--the places where the album feels very improvised--are weaker than the tracks with vocals, with the main exception being "Cranes, Planes, and Migraines" which features this really tight, funky rhythm section that makes the song very memorable.

But really, that's my only big gripe: the instrumentals can be a little meandering and in one ear and out the other. Besides that, I think the rest of the album sounds fantastic! Opener "Countdown" shows the band jelling together on a difficult 9/4 in duple meter beat, and features a very tasty, certified-jazz E-piano solo on the bridge, which I'm pretty sure is performed by Mild High Club? (If anyone happens to know if it isn't him, leave a comment! I want to know for sure, because that solo is impressive!) 

Many of the tracks on Sketches give some limelight to other members of the band besides normal frontman Stu, which gives the album a unique freshness: "Tezeta" is a fun, catchy, exotica shuffle, with lead vocals from Gizzard guitarist Joey Walker. "The Spider and Me" features Gizzard multi-instrumentalist (and my homie) Ambrose Kenny-Smith on vocals, who spins gold with his delicate, boyish performance. 

Da band: From L to R: Joey Walker, Stu Mackenzie, Eric Moore, Ambrose Kenny-Smith!, Lucas Skinner, Cook Craig, and Michael Cavanagh
Photo credit: https://www.relix.com/blogs/detail/king_gizzard_and_the_
lizard_wizard_play_whats_in_my_bag_at_amoeba_records

And then there's my personal favorite track, "The Book," a standout on the album not only because of how immediate and well-written it is, but because of how, just, dark it is compared to anything else on the record. In his best, deep-voiced Mike Patton impression, guitarist Cook Craig tells the tale of a schizophrenic man who thinks God is telling him to kill all the sinners in the world, and eventually himself. Tthe man regards these messages as his own kind of pageless Bible, or "The Book".... Yeah, dark stuff no matter what album it's on, but especially on this otherwise lackadaisical, dreamy project. But it's a really good different that makes the song stick with you. And again, it has a really strong, Disco Volante- or California-era Mr. Bungle vibe that I really dig.

All in all, to wrap up this rather long review, I am really loving Sketches of East Brunswick. It definitely has its flaws, and at rare points, the kind of meandering, piecemeal creative process that birthed it shows awkwardly. But, outweighing this are the great musical ideas that King Gizzard and Mild High Club cooked up and served together. If you haven't been huge on King Gizzard's past lo-fi, dense rock 'n roll, and especially if you weren't keen on the last album, Murder of the Universe, definitely give this a shot. I know personally I'll be spinning this album a lot, alongside the other great albums of 2017 and in King Gizzard's discog. I'm excited to see what they put out next!

OVERALL SCORE: 7.9
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Sketches of Brunswick East
1. Sketches of Brunswick East I 2. Countdown 3. D-Day 4. Tezeta 5. Cranes, Planes, and Migraines 6. Sketches of Brunswick East II 7. Dust to Dawn on Lygon Street 8. The Book 9. A Journey to (S)hell 10. Rolling Stoned 11. You Can Be Your Silhouette 12. Sketches of Brunswick East III	O!HTT's COLORFUL SCORING SYSTEM 9-10 Holy. Crap. You must hear this song. One of the best of the year. 7-8 I'm so glad I have ears so that I can listen to this wonderful song. 5-6 Yeah, it's passable. Contributes to the vibe of the album, but not anything to write home about. 3-4 Ehh very mediocre or seriously flawed, there's a lot better music out there, or even on this album. 0-2 Good gravy, why must this song exist? One of the worst things that will enter your ears this year.