L​.​W.

While I praised KG for taking a pre-established sound that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard went down previously and polishing and maturing it considerably to create something that sounded quite distinct and impressive for the band, I personally think that the same cannot be said about its companion piece, LW. While I completely expected this album to be essentially a 2nd part of the band's previous album to the point of cleanly transitioning from the closer of it into this one's opening track, I'm honestly still surprised about how little this one manages to stand up on its own or really at all in a significant way. The band undoubtedly attempted to bring some more eclectic sensibilities into the fray here, with a lot more songs that felt stylistically distinct in some rather dramatic ways (all of course within the context of their own sound), but at the same time, it ends up lacking some cohesion as a result. Furthermore, when it's not all over the place, it often ends up feeling quite flat, with the less out there songs lacking any compositional appeal or charm and just being flat boredom that further reinforces the album's lack of cohesion. Its inability to stand on its own without coming off KG is another issue it has and ends up making this lack a true sense of identity and instead makes it feel like a bit of an insignificant footnote to its far superior counterpart. Even with all of these flaws however, I'd personally consider it difficult to call this album outright bad either, as it has its moments of charm and a couple of incredible songs buried within the mess that it is.

One of the biggest issues that LW has is how it jumps around a fair bit and almost feels as if it's just reaching out and grabbing assorted pieces and trying its best to make them fit together even if the result isn't too clean. The song that represents this possibly the most is the opener, If Not Now, Then When? which has a chaotic, loud and messy intro that sprawls out of control for about a minute before things get reeled in and then completely changes everything about itself. The way that this goes from this heavy moment that feels incredibly messy into something rather soft, with a jazzy, funky melody played on a really quaint sounding keyboard with these soft, high pitched vocals doesn't really do anything other than feel rather annoying in the lack of major thread between the two sections. This is exacerbated by the way that this is meant to be the opener to this, further representing the fact that it feels as if the album simply wasn't meant to be listened to in isolation, which really begs the question about why the band didn't just hold off on releasing something until they were able to just make the double album KGLW. O.N.E represents the other issue the album has where the songs have a tendency to not really do too much that's in any way interesting, for the most part almost feeling like a B side but with a couple of great moments. I'll say that at the very least I appreciate the way that this song has that moment near the end where a really simple but nice guitar solo comes in to break up the monotony, which is quickly followed up with a really dense part that almost sounds as if there's a crowd idly chatting around the band as they play, really unique feel that maybe could have been cool as a full song concept rather than yet another "normal song but strange guitar tone" one.

Despite all my complaints with this however, there's still some greatness buried within that makes that album worth a listen. Pleura is the first of these, with its main appeal to me being the unusual vocals, with some lower, more intensely performed ones being contrasted by some very soft and pretty melodies being layered underneath it, creating a rather unique effect that plays well into the heaviness of the song as a whole. The bridge taking on a far lighter approach further fleshes out the song in an even more satisfying way and I wish that the album would have attempted to revolve around more of these sorts of dynamics because this track proves that it could be something really, really awesome. Supreme Ascendency is yet another great song, with a far more grandiose vibe than is typically expected from the Ambrose led track on a King Gizz album. The production feels rather strange here as well, but in a good way, with the instrumentation feeling as if it's getting given centre stage at practically all times, the vocals instead being pushed back enough to more elevate the soundscapes being evoked rather than the other way around, all in all creating something I'm a big fan of yet again. The final song that I feel is worth special mention is that closing track, which is without a doubt my favourite of the doom metal songs the band's written up to this point. Not only do I like the way it ties back into the intro of KG, but I also love how it once again doesn't just rely on being heavy, and really leans into those mysterious, almost occult sounds and imagery to give it so much more depth. The riffs also rock, the middle section where it's just hard hitting instrumental part after hard hitting instrumental part is phenomenal, the way that it manages to bring an incredible sense of finality to things, it's all just an amazing time and almost makes it worth listening to this album for that track alone.

Overall, while there are a few great songs on LW, I can't help but feel that there was really not too much reason for it to have existed in the form it took. With a bit of moving things around I feel like that this and KG had enough material to make a really solid album that was still considerably longer than anything else the band had released, without putting out a double album in 2 pieces with one of them just not working too well at all in isolation and is also got a ton of filler. The more I listen to this the more I just wish that King Gizz just approached things in this other way because even when listening to both albums back to back, this one just carries on too long with the filler present within, and resulted in what has some of the band's greatest material being buried by a hodgepodge of ideas that didn't all fit together as cleanly as the band probably would have liked. Is this worth listening to? yeah, at least once, it's not bad, but is there a reason to exist and does it actually add all that much to things overall? no not really beyond a couple of fantastic highlights. I also feel like this one kinda hurt the band's reputation for some because of the fact that it's another microtonal album which has gotten some people complaining about them getting lazy or something, which I just highly disagree with considering this was clearly the plan from the start, to revisit a previous sound in a more longform way before continuing to expand outwards, it's just a detour in whatever the band feels like doing at that moment. Despite being disappointed with LW and thinking it retroactively makes KG a less rewarding listening experience, I still look forward to seeing what KGATLW are able to do next, because I have faith that even if they'll continue making really fun and interesting music in the future even if there's the potential of them releasing some fairly underwhelming stuff in between.

Best tracks: Pleura, Supreme Ascendancy, K.G.L.W.

Weakest tracks: If Not Now, Then When?, East West Link, See Me