OMNIUM GATHERUM KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

(2022)

The Australian psych-rock collective are such a welter of creativity that pressing play on any of their 20 studio albums is to submit to the overwhelming, to embrace chaos. It will still be there when the record finishes. Omnium Gatherum is a remarkable album, not least because it reportedly sprouted from off-cuts, and of course, the jam. Thedripping Tap opens the album with an 18-minute jam that somehow remembers to incorporate an audacious hook amid the fevered rush of instrumentation, climaxing with a supernova of ascending lead guitar squall. On occasion, synths pull focus with a spacedout groove, or they’ll park themselves in a lounge-room Prince RNB vibe, but then they’ll burl round 180 and a record a metal song like Gaia. Prog, soul, RNB, metal, psych – anything goes when musical freedom abounds. In another timeline, maybe Frank Zappa would have had them open for him...