Banish any winter blues with ‘Paper Mâché Dream Balloon’, the latest album from Australian psychedelic troubadours King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard. The energetic seven-piece band sing and play an array of acoustic instruments (except Eric Moore credited with ‘nothing’!) and each of the songs is a musical burst of summery optimism, although some of the lyrics are a bit darker, such as ‘Cold Cadaver’….

Opening track ‘Sense’ starts with laid-back clarinet over a jazz groove and a lyric of bewilderment. Two more songs with a similar flavour then the sumptuous title track adds punctuations of unpredictable drums, lots of flute, harmonica and kaleidoscopic words (“stuck in a daydream, under a moonbeam…”). ‘Trapdoor’ is a fast paranoid work-out, ‘The Bitter Boogie’ is a longer blues reminiscent of The Doors.

The elements used in the songs recur and drift in and out, seemingly almost random at times but always mesmerising. I saw the sound praised somewhere as ‘tightly shambolic’…
The final track has the flute playing the opening part of all the songs that came before on the album, then rewound fast to a concluding explosion!

They are gaining a reputation for brilliant live shows, I will be seeing them soon!

http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/index.html