3 out of 5

Label: KGLW

Produced by: Stu Mackenzie

Trying to set aside the “cursed production” of this album, and thus expectations that might’ve built up while waiting for its long-relayed release, accepting ‘Made in Timeland’ for what it is – a between-sets bit of distraction, intended for marathon live shows – this 2-song, 15-minutes-a-piece album is… alright.

Like, utterly, absolutely, alright. Perhaps more directly critically, it doesn’t sound like KGLW, which is an odd criticism to leverage at a band which has made its name by endlessly experimenting, but I’d say there’s be a followable thread though most of that that tosses all those experiments into a larger King Gizzard bucket. While we didn’t want to believe it could happen, maybe it was inevitable that all that mixin’ it up would eventually run out of steam, and so you wind up a some KG tracks that are, uh, EDM. We also find the group doing some more, eh, rap-ish beats and lyrical delivery, a la Omnium Gathering, and while I think it’s essentially pulled off here, both of these affectations make a once undeniably cool band merit a “daaaad, stooop” kind of response. Maybe not a good look.

However, let’s go back to the intention of this thing, and all of that becomes more tolerable. If you view these tracks as breaks between “real” ones, it makes sense that we’d go in for something different, and that’s what these songs offer. Does it make them good as standalones, though? Well, that’s where we’re back to “alright.” Timeland is wholly that, segueing between snippets of casual beats and more dancefloor ones, and just a splash of psychedelic freakouts; it is forgettable maybe by design. Smoke & Mirros has some legitimately solid moments, that do sound like KGLW, but they would need more room to grow to be impactful, and both songs here are structured as linked moments (with a tick-tock metronome hanging around the entire runtime, to keep a theme); plus, Smoke & Mirros kinda counters its better moments with a total rave-up club beat, and the eye-rolly hip-hop stuff.

S’alright.