Raucous 7-piece King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are one of Australia’s most prominent rising acts, and with a successful 2012 under their belt, which saw them launch their full-length debut 12 Bar Bruise to widespread critical claim, you’d think the collective had earned the right to rest on their laurels.
But, as the saying goes, there’s no rest for the wicked, and King Gizzard have something very wicked coming this way. Rather than letting the proverbial horse to rest, the collective have dug in their spurs, ready to charge ahead into 2013 with a brand new album, following less than six months after their first release.
The band released an album trailer over the weekend (which you can view up top) for a brand new LP that’s set for release this February titled Eyes Like The Sky, a ten track collection that’s described as “a psychedelic western audiobook LP written and narrated by Broderick Smith.”
Broderick Smith is, of course, the former frontman of The Dingoes, but also the father of King Gizzard member Ambrose Kenny-Smith (who doubles as the leader of equally promising Aussie act The Murlocs), and Smith Snr’s fire and brimstone voice provides the narration on Eyes Like The Sky.
The idea for the new record originally spawned from a new short story to accompany an instrumental album of western music, proposed by Smith, who – in the band’s own words – “returned with 6 chapters of love, lust, scalping, and an evil holy man.” “A brand new ten track collection that’s described as “a psychedelic western audiobook LP written and narrated by Broderick Smith.”
The group also cite writer Cormac McCarthy, the bleak novelist behind The Road and No Country For Old Men, Kirpatrick Thomas’ dusty, psychedelic ensemble Spindrift, and of course the spaghetti westerns of director Ennio Morricone as influences on the new audiobook LP, described as a “triumph in gory western drama.”
Sonically those influences ring as loud and true as a six shooter’s pistol, the trailer featuring twanging guitars soundtracking footage of sweeping vistas and lonely western towns all in a heavily dyed trailer that perfectly channels its source material; the way Quentin Tarantino might if he was ready to craft his own cowboys and indians epic.
The new album seems to be a logical extension of ‘Sam Cherry’s Last Shot’, a choice cut from 12 Bar Bruise that also featured Broderick Smith reading a murderous tale, that our Tone Deaf reviewer aptly described as “sounding like Johnny Cash’s voice reciting the Bible for ‘The Man Comes Around,’ it plays out like a cult leader describing a hallucination.”
The track was originally conceived as an instrumental, as the band point out: “We considered synching a chapter of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian to the song but that was too hard,” explains Stu Mackenzie. “Brod is an absolute western nut and offered to read a chapter about Sam Cherry from the 1883 novel 33 Years Among Our Wild Indians which we included as a voice over on the song.”
The resulting collaboration was one of many highlights from the band’s debut, and the clear catalyst for what would become the band’s second full-length release.
Considering that 12 Bar Bruise was one of the best debuts of last year, and easily one of the best local releases of 2012, Eyes Like The Sky certainly has some expectations to meet, but given the calibre of its influences and executors, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard look set to have another great release to add to their developing discography.
Eyes Like The Sky will be released through King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s own record label, Flightless in Feb 2013, you can view the full tracklist below:
Track List:
1. Eyes Like The Sky
2. Year Of Our Lord
3. The Raid
4. Drum Run
5. An Evil Man
6. Fort Whipple
7. The God Mans Goat Lust
8. The Killing Ground
9. Dust In The Wind
10. Guns And Horses
