Live: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard @ Fuzz Club (Athens, March 16th, 2018)

The first ever show by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard in Athens could not have come at a better time. The Australian psych-rock explorers have always been extremely prolific, but releasing five albums during the course of last year must certainly be some kind of record!

With so much new material constantly coming our way it was rather hard to keep up with them lately, but watching them perform live a 90-minute summation of their more recent body of work is undoubtedly the best way to experience their ever expanding universe of sound and a definitive affirmation, if you need one, that guitar rock music is way too exciting to ever go away. It may go "out of fashion" for a while (like it seems to be at the moment), but the fire is still burning somewhere and all it takes is just a little fuel to rage uncontrollably again.

The seven-piece Melbourne band, with its delicious mix of psychedelia, garage punk, metal and progressive rock creates an explosive, genuinely exciting sound that earns them more and more fans each year, not because of any type of hype, but only thanks to their hard work and their seemingly inexhaustible creativity. Their sold-out Athens gig was proof that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are among the most capable keepers of the rock flame that we currently have, working tirelessly to create the fuel that will feed the fire again. After a frantic 2017, it’s certainly exciting to see where their unpredictable journey will take them next.

The show opened by Montero, the band led by musician and cartoonist Ben Montero, whose eccentric take on progressive rock and '70s soft rock is not my cup of tea. Although their live performance left me unimpressed, they do sound much more interesting on record as you can listen here, where you can stream their new album "Performer".

Montero, live @ Fuzz Club (Athens, March 16, 2018)

Check out below one of the highlights of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s set, the excellent "Rattlesnake" off their first and perhaps best album of 2017, "Flying Microtonal Banana":

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Rattlesnake (live @ Fuzz Club)

 

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, live @ Fuzz Club (Athens, March 16, 2018)

The April '17 Hit Parade

Hope you all enjoyed yesterday's Record Store Day and that you were able to find those special releases you were after. Actually, with such a strong roster of new releases lately, I don’t think that a special day is needed to give us an incentive to visit our local record stores. As you will see next week in our latest Listening Habits post, there is currently a huge pile of excellent records we are going through and plenty more are going to be added over the next few weeks as we're anxiously expecting new releases by the likes of The Afghan Wigs, Mark Lanegan, The Black Angels and At The Drive-In to name but a few.

With so many excellent new releases by returning favorite artists, it is easy to overlook some very worthwhile albums by new or relatively new acts that are coming out over the same period. To avoid making this mistake, in this post we have chosen to highlight the new work of a few of these bands that we are either newly acquainted with or we have known about for a little while. Say hello to London all-girl four-piece The Big Moon and Melbourne rockers Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, and welcome back the psychedelic sounds of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, also from Melbourne, and Temples from Kettering:

The Big Moon - Sucker

The Big Moon are Juliette Jackson, Soph Nathann, Celia Archer and Fern Ford. They made their debut with the single "Sucker" in 2015 and after a few more singles, among them last year's pop gem "Silent Movie Susie", they have just released their debut album "Love in the 4th Dimension", a strong pop record that brings to mind the era when bands like Elastica or Sleeper ruled the indie airwaves. Check out above the reworked version of "Sucker" that opens their debut album.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Julie's Place

We can't wait to hear what Melbourne's Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are going to present to us when the time comes for their debut album. For now we'll have to make do with their astonishing second 7-track EP "The French Press", their Sub Pop debut, that sounds like a marriage made in heaven between Broken Social Scene and The Go-Betweens!

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Rattlesnake

Psychedelic rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have been going for a while now, releasing so far nine albums in five years! Their latest one "Flying Microtonal Banana" is an outstanding mix of psych and krautrock sounds and is just the first installment of five albums set to be released in 2017 that experiment with microtonality. This is going to be interesting, to say the least...

Temples - Strange Or Be Forgotten

We have been championing Temples ever since we've come across their excellent debut album "Sun Structures" at the beginning of 2014. Now the Kettering four-piece is back with its sophomore work "Volcano", another psychedelic pop trip with more dance-rock influences this time around, but with a prevailing 60's rock vibe at its core, with strong melodies forming the backbone of their sound.

Visit us again next week for the complete list of our favorite albums and songs for March - April 2017, it's gonna be a blast!