Infest The Rats’ Nest
Flightless
2019
Rating: 9.5 nervous tables out of 10
There’s an overused idiom “If you don’t like the weather in [insert town/state/country name here], just wait ten minutes!” that every single person seems to think applies to whatever podunk town in which they grew up. However, the alternate version that says “If you don’t like the newest King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard album, just wait ten minutes!” is incredibly truthful. The Giz release a lot of records, but unlike others of this ilk (I’m looking at you, Robert Pollard and Will Oldham) whose output is pretty stylistically similar, these Aussies put out entire albums that are all over the map. The last one I really loved was 2017’s “Murder Of The Universe,” a heavy, prog-laden rock opera about wizards or some nonsensical Flaming Lips-esque shit. Four rather forgettable records later, they have now gifted us with “Infest The Rats’ Nest,” possibly their best work ever depending on who you ask (if you ask me, the answer is yes). If you predicted this album would mostly be an homage to eighties-style thrash metal, you should be playing the lottery or the ponies. My best guess is they have a “Wheel of Fortune”-type wheel with all music genres listed on it, and then the band records an album of whatever style is randomly chosen. King Gizzard kick it off with the Metallica-like “Planet B,” later venture into Exodus territory with my personal favorite “Organ Farmer,” go a little bit more retro with the Black Sabbathy “Superbug” and Motorhead tribute “Venusian 2,”and last but not least enter the realm of Slayer with “Self-Immolate.” The nine song album is 35 minutes long, and I’ve listened to it from start to finish more times than I can count at this point – it’s akin to listening to a great metal mixtape, it just happens to be all from the same band. There’s no way this should work as well as it does from a bunch of Australian hipsters, but there is no hint of irony here – at least for this album, King Gizzard have genuinely become a metal band, and fuck me if “Infest The Rats’ Nest” isn’t the best heavy record of the year so far (my metal friends will definitely give me shit for this opinion, because no one applies more purity tests to their music than a goddamn metalhead).
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