King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - The Silver Cord

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard swapped their guitars for synthesisers on The Silver Cord, their 25th studio album from 2023, pressed here on recycled black vinyl.

Released the same year as the thrash-metal fury of PetroDragonic Apocalypse, this record works as its opposite number, a yin to that album's yang. The spark came when drummer Michael Cavanagh bought a Simmons electronic drum kit, and rather than layering parts one by one in the studio, the band recorded together in a room, chasing a live, interlocking feel that gives the electronics real human sweat.

Produced by Stu Mackenzie, the album pulses with analogue synths, dance-floor rhythms and vocals that drift between chant and croon. Theia opens with a hypnotic, slow-building throb, and the title track rides bubbling electronics toward the strobe lights. Chang'e and Gilgamesh, like several songs here, borrow their names from ancient mythology, lending the record a strange, celestial grandeur. The whole thing moves like one long set, each track feeding into the next.

For a band that seems to reinvent itself every few months, The Silver Cord still stands out as one of their boldest left turns, a glowing electronic record that works equally well on headphones or at full volume in a crowded room.