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King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - I'm In Your Mind Fuzz

"I'm In Your Mind Fuzz"

Release date: 01 December 2014
Album of the week
7.5/10
King Gizzard The Lizard Wizard In Your Mind Fuzz
28 November 2014, 09:30 Written by Stephen Jenkins
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Australian psych troupe King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have not simply released their new album, I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, but rather they have opened a portal into quite strange and wonderful new sonic dimension. Maaaan.

The seven shaggy-haired chaps who make up this freakishly named outfit hail from Carlton, Melbourne, and as of yet they haven't made much headway into the consciousness of the UK music scene. But, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's new album promises to make like a new brand of super-drug by entering your mind and giving it a little prod, poke and tickle. Brace yourselves. The band's fourth album in two years comes with no warnings, and no regulations. I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is the full trip, complete with full on acid-soaked head-rush interspersed with momentary doses of bliss.

The record begins with a sudden upsurge of psyched-out guitar and an unrelenting garage rock inspired bass line which etches itself deep into the grooves of your cranial nerves. This audible odyssey lasts throughout the first four songs of the record - “I'm In Your Mind”, “I'm Not In Your Mind”, leading single “Cellophane”, and “I'm In Your Mind Fuzz” - all of which ooze and melt into one another until you're left quite paranoid that your ears have been snorting DMT while you weren't looking.

There's a change of tune though on the spacey “Empty”, a bass driven waltz in which singer Stu Mackenzie shows off his surfy vocal range, which can climb from a disingenuous snarl to a pitch-perfect high note in a flash. “Hot Water” presents a flume of flutes and pipes which acts a brief breather before “Am I In Heaven” brings us back into the customary territory of musical mind-fuckery.

The album concludes on a different note altogether. Perhaps its stand out moment comes on the deliciously sweet “Slow Jam I”, which balances a weeping guitar with Mackenzie's fragile vocal turn. This is followed by the insidiously sleazy yet soft guitar and flute number, “Satan Speeds Up” before “Her & I (Slow Jam II)" plays out the record with a delightfully sun-soaked solo of wah-guitars. By the end of it all, all the uneasiness left by the opening cacophony of noise has well and truly fizzled away, leaving you feeling quite at ease with the world.

I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is a concept album which sets out to be a psychological experience and it achieves this, albeit with a caveat - that being that it can be more of a headache inducing ordeal at times rather than an all out smooth and enjoyable ride. But, although you might come out of it feeling a little bit ruffled, and you might question your very being, I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is a peculiar delight; one which you should indulge in at least once, if only just to try it. It may just leave you wanting another taste.

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