King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Changes ALBUM REVIEW

They’re just farming for XP to level up by the end of the year, don’t worry about quality over quantity.


Since I literally wrote about these guys a few weeks back, I have no idea how to properly introduce you other than to link you to my Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava review so you can get the full picture. However, there’s even more context behind this release. In 2017, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard put out five albums, just as they did this year with this album, Changes. This album, however, was meant to be the fifth album of 2017. With most King Gizz releases, there’s a core concept, with this one having every track in D major / F# major chord changes. I’m not even sure if I worded that correctly, but you get the idea. There’s also a pretty visual reference to the track titles, if you’ve got a keen eye. King Gizz have continued to raise the bar all this year and this shouldn’t be any different. Let’s get into Changes and see how I felt about it.

As I looked more into what was going on with this project outside of the songs, I found that the band was inspired by John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Another thing I noticed is that they finally found a piano. Like, it’s not something I’d normally notice, but there’s a lot of piano on this. As I’ve said in the past about King Gizz, while I do enjoy a great amount of their material, I prefer their more laid-back, jazzy sound. While it’s a tough call between this and Sketches of Brunswick East, I think that this is their best album in this lane. Hell, it might be one of their best albums period. It has this overall sunny feeling that just activates the lizard part of my brain, and the consistency in how all the songs run together is very cool to me. Blending pop, jazz, soul, and funk is something many artists have done, but I don’t know, this simply hit different for me. I still think that they could go in this direction for the rest of their careers and thrive off of it, but the versatility in what they’ve released only this past October have shown just how talented they are.

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard wrap up 2022 with what’s most likely their best release of the year with Changes, a jazzy effort that proves that they may be the only exception of quality over quantity. I really don’t know what else to say but this: King Gizz has done it yet again.


10/10


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Changes is a KGLW release.

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