King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – PetroDragonic Apocalypse
KGLW/Virgin – 2023
Trash, Metal
Rated: ***
Ever since the album came out in June, I’ve been trying to figure out if the new King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is really good, as good as Infest The Rats’ Nest or just another fun little release by KGLW. Well, we’re still not sure. We are sure that PetroDragonic Apocalypse; Or Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation is one of the longest album titles I ever came across and is definitely the longest and weirdest KGLW decided to use. And they’ve already had some weird and long ones before. The album contains their second exercise in trash metal and roughs you up just like Infest The Rats’ Nest did back in 2019. But where that album still lives on in memory, and even on the old vinyl player from time to time, the tracks on this new one never seem to become very memorable for me. It is good, wholesome even, and talks about a lot of issues plaguing humankind, besides dragons of course, but the compositions just blast on without a lot of extra touches. The moments where a bit of prog and psych do come into play, are those few instances you think, aah, now we’re getting somewhere. And then we’re off to the thrash races again, where the gatling energy seems only destined to poke a massive amount of holes in you. Which of course fits the subject, but never seems to fully nourish the heavy rocking soul. Which might be a weird conclusion to make, given the sheer amount of love and giddiness the album received from all my fellow Doom Charts Contributors. I mean, it even ended up on Number 8th of the June Edition. Die hard KGLW fans will surely be using the album as a soundtrack for the end of times, but personally, I’ll just wait for better times, or better music to herald the apocalypse…
(Written by JK)