King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard- Chunky Shrapnel

 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard recording a live album sounds like a perfect idea. Most of their projects have this amazing raw energy that is bound to translate perfectly to a live performance. In the nine years they have been active, boys from King Gizzard have released more albums than most artists do over the span of their whole careers so at this point they have enough material to make their concert album a very solid “Best of” compilation. It’s not what they did on Chunky Sharpener though. For the most part we get few tracks from a specific album one after the other and then move on to some other record. Two of the albums they choose make sense- Nonagon Infinity is arguably their best and Infest the Rats Nest is their newest. I don’t get why we had to spend so much time in Polygondwanaland, especially in the weaker parts of it. I would love to hear Crumbling Castle or Searching live, Loyalty and Horology not so much. Still, this versions are much more entertaining than the studio ones. Apart from that, my only nitpick are transitions between some songs on the album. I guess those were the moments in the movie where they show some footage of the band but on the album they just feel like filler.

The biggest highlights on Chunky are improvised, like The River or the closer A Brief History of Planet Earth- a fantastic 20 minute jam that fully displays how diverse of the band King Gizzard is. It is kind of a medley, it began with Rattlesnake and later transitioned into a solo I think I remember from Dream Baloon… What’s interesting about King Gizzard is that they often recycle the same ideas but in different styles, so it wasn’t easy to pin point from what song they were borrowing at what point in the track but the all the stylistic changes felt like we were moving between different albums they put out. It’s the best ending to a King Gizzard concert album I could have hoped for, it re
ally brought the whole record to a new level. I can’t wait for what they are going to do next. I hope we get a Chunky sequel someday, maybe next decade, after another fifteen studio albums.

Rating: 7.5/10