Lit by thunderclaps and lightning, Murder Of The Universe inhabits a sonic landscape of death, decay, ossification, fossilisation, rebirth. It is a place occupied by wandering shape-shifting beasts, bleeding skies, pools of blood, great fires and mushroom clouds; a planet rent asunder by conflict.
A disorientating experience, the album hinges on three distinct sections that rise from larval beds, and whose lyrics should be carved in stone, squeezed from moss, discovered in ancient runes. And all the while a passing cast of characters imbue the tale with both human and non-human emotions.
Snippets of earlier recordings breakthrough collection I’m In Your Mind Fuzz and Nonagon Infinity resurface throughout like ghostly shadow form to haunt their latest sound. In years to come King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will be judged not by their separate albums, but by a body of work where themes, melodies, motifs, riffs and ideas resurface and recur, each album peeling back a layer of the onion to glimpse at past and future alike.
“We’ve always thought of our albums as portals through which you can move from one to the other,” says Stu. “Or maybe each album is a bridge to the next part of the story. Songs sync together, records can be played in loops and past ideas recur or are reprised, and then woven into new textures. These ideas aren’t necessarily contrived though...sometimes these just happen.”
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Another brilliant outing from the King Giz fam. Psychedelic swirling guitars, echoing vocal melodies, impeccable percussive freak-outs and as ever, fist-pumping heavy af grooves.
TRACK LISTING
The Tale Of The Altered Beast
1. A New World
2. Altered Beats I
3. Alter Me I
4. Altered Best II
5. Alter Me I
6. Altered Beast III
7. Alter Me III
8. Altered Beats IV
9. Life / Death
The Lord Of Lightening Vs. Balrog
10. Some Context
11. The Reticent Raconteur
12. The Lord Of Lightening
13. The Balrog
14. The Floating Fire
15. The Acrid Corpse
Han- Tyumi And The Murder Of The Universe
16. Welcome To An Altered Future
17. Digital Black
18. Han-Tyumi, The Confused Cyborg
19. Soy-Protein Munt Machine
20. Vomit Coffin
21. Murder Of The Universe