2 out of 5

Label: KGLW

Produced by: Joey Walker, Stu Mackenzie

Can the King Gizzard crew shred on par with the heavy metal gods? Absolutely. But just because you can do something…

I was totally down with the idea of PetroDragonic Apocalypse: a tonal followup to Infest the Rat’s Nest that sounded more fully committed to the shtick, going all in on a narrative (I mean, check the full title) and, just by dint of being a second run at this sound, perhaps a more confident expression of it. Like, Stu and the crew would be able to go all-in. And for a band provably adept at so many styles, often able to bring their own flavor to it – with, again, some practice in this vein already – this was all good news, well supported by a fun first single in Gila Monster: a big, bad central riff; a shredding solo; a silly narrative about the world domination by the titular creature, and Stu’s Mötörhead growls, with gang vocals from the crew and a perfect staccato verse from Ambrose Kenny-Smith!

…At the same time, besides the Gizzard “whoo” vocal exhaltations, where in the KGLW in all this? Yes, it’s a full body costume, but this time, without much sense of the person – the band – beneath, even to the extent that those ‘whoo’s sound out of place, and rather jimmied in. Furthermore, the composition of the track holds no surprises: it has no peaks or valleys, and does verse-chorus-verse-solo exactly as expected. Fun is the right word for it, it’s just not much more.

Extend this to whole album. An album where the pitch and pace never varies; where the story that’s told in Gila Monster has no other ideas or necessarily worthy passages for exploring – all of the album’s moves are within that one song. Except that every other song is at least two minutes or more longer than Gila, which is not a good thing in this case, as we’re taking the unchanging vocals, and volume, and chugga chugga guitar and stretching it out without any further added distinction. This truly felt like an unemotional decision, i.e.: isn’t KG known for long songs? So let’s tack extra runtime onto everything to meet that mark. …Thus, file it the same as those habitual ‘whoos’.

I think, in this case, the band needed some input outside of the inner circle. The self-production very often serves them well, but the whole album hits at max levels throughout (it reminds of the overload of Bob Rock’s Metallica Load production, without the clipped mix), and this just underlines the lack of variation within each song. I can imagine a seasoned metal producer coming in and helping the group carve excess, and finding some opportunities for depth.

On reflection, all of this seems apparent from the background and press of the release: Stu’s usual casualness and a reverse fit-the-songs-to-the-story approach suggests how this was pretty top down. But, as we began, the group can undoubtedly shred, and I think, from afar – and a song at a time – the album is fine. I mean, it rocks; you’ll headbang at points. Conceptually it works, and even if I wish the story had a bit more meat to it, it’s sillily fun, which makes the vinyl-only D-side atmospheric reading of the tale by Leah Senior an appreciated conclusion.