( A classic from King Gizzard!)
This album is split up into 3 different parts, and three different narratives. First up is “Chapter 1: The Tale Of The Altered Beast”. This chapter starts out with “A New World”, and one thing is for sure, the atmosphere on this track is awesome. The heavy synths immediately bring in a serious sense of Heavy Sci-Fi. The voiceover is alright and all, but to be honest, if they were going to go through with any of this they should have made this track a little longer, told the story and be done with it in it’s entirety. However, I do enjoy the campiness of this intro, and the very bizarre tones especially in those synths. Then we have “Altered Beast I”, and immediately this is much more like it. This track is absolutely the wild, unhinged King Gizzard that I fell in live with years ago. The bass is rattling, the drums are completely non stop, and vocal wise this is the sort of bizarre and over the top performance that I love to hear from them. This is easily the most upbeat and heavy track I’ve heard from King Gizzard in ages, especially since “Nonagon Infinity”. “Altered Beast I” is visceral, intense, and also a little hard to follow as far as the concept goes. But aside from that, this is the sort of wild King Gizzard track I’ve been dying to hear. With the next track, “Alter Me I’, the real issues behind this album start to unfold. All of these concepts and thoughts and more storytelling parts to their music is totally fine. But the way these concepts are presented is an absolute mess. I was seriously getting in the groove of this album, but “Alter Me I” is a detour for an entire minute that really doesn’t need to be here. It just sort of takes the wind out of everything with super repetitive lyrics, because King Gizzard have never been known for their lyrics. But then we have tracks on here that come off seriously awesome like “Altered Beast II”. The guitars here are seriously tense, and the visceral and violent voice over here adds to the feel of everything. What makes tracks like this so good, is the way that King Gizzard grab an idea and stick with it until it’s finished. It’s that simple, but man does it ever work. Then of course we have the instrumentals, which are seriously over the top and some of the more explosive I’ve heard from them recently, mostly in these ridiculous drum passages. Everything about this track is off the wall. Even when the narrative comes in, it comes off so much better within this atmosphere, as convoluted as it’s becoming. Altered Beast II” is one hell of a track. But then once again, King Gizzard suck the wind out of their own performance with “Alter Me II”. The instrumentals on this track are so mellow and quiet, and what a shame that is because these are some of the most passionate and ridiculous vocals I’ve heard so far. I just keep feeling like this album is so unorganized to an extent. But it’s frustrating, because there’s a ton of really great stuff going on here as well. For example, King Gizzard hop right back into the swing of things and bring out the heavy and intense “Altered Beast III”. I love the animated and seemingly unhinged vocal performance here, as well as some of the haunting backing vocals as well If you’re into campy and over the top Garage Rock, like Thee Oh Sees, you’re totally going to eat this all up. Not to mention, that slower and more doom oriented passage inn that last minute is performed near perfectly. Thankfully, of these interludes, “Alter Me III” is one of the better ones, mostly due to the sheer haunting performance on this one. I love the backing synths that give this such an atmosphere, and that harmonica is seriously a nice touch as well. No, “Alter Me III” isn’t perfect, but it’s a nice interlude between thoughts for King Gizzard. Then we have “Altered Beast IV”, and this just get’s under my skin man. Mostly because of just how well the voiceover comes off here when they seriously do it right. The playing on some of thee tracks remains so damn tense and tightly wound, it’s to the point where it’s almost shocking to hear a new instrumental pop in. The playing here as the track goes on, between the zany keyboards and the wild guitars is just so damn all over the place. It’s epic though, and makes for some seriously gigantic crescendos. Even the vocal performance here is just so paranoid and genuinely disturbed sounding. Overall, hell yea it’a s pretty damn solid tune. But another problem with this album has arisen for me. I feel like if you don’t listen to all of this project in one long swipe there would be no comprehending anything at all. Bur for an album listen, hell yes this is the intense and out of control trip that I was praying King Gizzard would take us on. But then we have the finale to chapter 1, “Life/Death”, which is super light and contains upbeat airy guitars. And you guessed it, that really doesn’t fit this environment at all. However, in the setoff half, King Gizzard do turn things around to the sort of campy, ridiculous, Sci-Fi sound that I’ve wanted to hear this whole album. Even down to the narrators repeated line of “It’s time for you to die” just comes off so great. I honestly even with it went on longer, because it ends up coming off just as an afterthought.
Chapter 2 is up next, “The Lord of Lightning Vs. Balrog”. It starts off on a pretty messy note however with “Some Context”, which is such a freakin cool interlude that ends up going with the theme of the album. But it’s only 17 seconds! That’s not even an interlude folks, that’s an incomplete thought. However, as ridiculously short it is, “The Reticent Raconteur” actually comes of great. The quiet and subtle atmosphere makes the story come descend into the more understandable realm for a minute or so. The almost goofy sort of moaning in the background helps too. And while this track is only a minute, it works, and it ushers in the next track, “The Lord of Lightning” wonderfully. Now, as far as a stand alone track goes, “The Lord of Lightning” is one of the best here by far and easily the most thought out. The instrumentals here are easily the most out of control element on this entire album. Between the seemingly impossible drums and the wild harmonicas and keyboards, this track is seriously ridiculous. There’s some progressive elements here that actually come off really nicely, and like I said this one seriously comes off as a complete thought making it stand out. Hearing this track when it was first released, I really thought that this was THE King Gizzard sound. As the track goes on, it just keeps getting more and more twisted and visceral and violent. It’s hard to keep track of, as this track seems to be completely off the rail with a very “No Rules” attitude. But it’s all incredibly exciting, and it there’s one track you’re going to listen to on this one, make it this one. “The Balrog” is up next, and it’s just about as straight forward as you could imagine. And when I think of straightforward King Gizzard tracks, trust me I can’t think of many. But sadly, it’s not nearly as interesting or as exciting. Lyrically however, come on, this is really half assed. Like I said earlier, King Gizzard have never exactly been wordsmiths, but they are BARELY trying here. To the point where when our narrator pops in, it’s a little refreshing to be honest. Even the more progressive elements to this one don’t even come off nearly as seamless. “The Balrog” is just sort of meh sadly. Then we have “The Floating Fire”, and I actually really like some of the more campy and doom sounds here, especially within the vocals. There’s actually some really great stuff going on here for as short as this track goes on. But I feel like this album is so disgustingly Quantity over quality for my taste. There are so many great ideas throughout “Murder Of The Universe”, but very few of them come out organized. But for two minutes, “The Floating Fire” do slightly repair their half assed atmosphere. Then we have, boy howdy, another “Just OK” interlude in “The Acrid Corpse”. Once again, there’s some seriously great elements, like the Doom Metal nods as well as the backing growls. But come on, this track is A MINUTE. Why was this track not fleshed out? Or put into another track? Or left out? I have so many questions.
The third and final chapter, “Han-Tyumi And The Murder Of The Universe” is upon us. I didn’t want to go really into the narrative behind this album at all in this review, A) because it’s hard to follow, and b) if this IS an album you want to check out I didn’t want to spoil anything. This chapter starts out with “Welcome to An Altered Future”. All I can say about this is, King Gizzard at the very least do a fairly good job of dividing these three stories/parts. It’s a very doom interlude with some great synthesizers as a nice touch. But that’s literally all this is. With all of these half assed interludes, it does my heart so much pain to go on and hear amazing tracks like “Digital Black”. At the end of the day, this is the sort of track that I was absolutely dying to hear. This is the sort of straightforward, catchy, and chaotic Garage Psych banger that I haven’t heard from these guys in a while. Instrumentally, this isn’t necessarily a complete all out assault. But it’s just what King Gizzard really need to do at this point. I love how hypnotic every element to this track is. However, I really just can’t shake how oversaturated this album is as a whole, which is even harder to swallow hearing amazing tracks like this. Then we have “Han-Tyumi, The Confused Cyborg”. This one is alright, but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as it could have been It’s certainly better for the story telling aspect of this album, as King Gizzard rumble on beneath the story unfolding in front of our eyes. I actually really like a whole lot of the instrumentals on this track, the synths continue to be seriously to die for. Not to mention, not to spoil anything, but some of these lines about Han-Tyumi are actually kind of hilarious. But now that this album is sort of back on track, “Soy-Protein Munt Machine” comes along. And what do you know, we have an extra interlude that could have so easily been left out completely or tied on to the last track. And then I hear a track like “Vomit Coffin”, and it’s like, this is so simple that it’s amazing. There are no gimmicks here, no fluff and no side thoughts. No, “Vomit Coffin” is literally just King Gizzard plowing through a relentlessly awesome tune. It’s heavy, it’s disgusting, and it’s visceral. Most of all though, in every way it firs in so well with the thoughts and themes of this album. But in the end this ends up pissing me off, because THIS is the perfect example of how easily amazing this album could have been. This massive album ends off with “Murder Of The Universe”. Instrumentally this is much more laid back and jazzy, in a way it comes off as a cross between their “Paper Mache Dream Balloon” and “Flying Microtonal Banana” albums. It’s all fine and good. But this album by this point has become so wrapped up with it’s own story, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But my God it was presented so sloppily.
Rating : 7.6/10
Give A Listen To: "Altered Beast II", "Altered Beat IV", "The Lord of Lightning", "Digital Black"
Overall Summary : I honestly thought this was going to be a major rock album of the year for me. The singles leading up to this album were wild, and the concepts are creative and entertaining. But oh my God as far as structure goes this album is an absolute mess. All of the spoken word narratives and the pointless interludes are enough to take the wind out of this album. And the worst part of it is, is just how great the material comes off when they focus. It's messy, interesting, but messy.
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