You know what, I absolutely agree with you and I’m glad someone else feels the same way. People try to defend the “it’s not quantity over quality” argument but it never holds up, they put out way too much music and the songwriting is very mediocre. I always say if fans are craving and needing new stuff every year then it’s kind of obvious they aren’t making impactful stuff. I’ve tried getting into them many times but I couldn’t name a song if I heard it if I tried, zero hooks or catchy melodys, the guitar parts sound the same most of the time and like you said they do shallow takes of different genres. I think they’re fun and I’m glad they’re successful, but they’re way too hyped up for a band that sounds like the average Bandcamp college band. They’re essentially a jam band, and that’s not my thing so maybe that’s it and they are great in that regard.. but idk, I’m more into great lasting songwriting and stuff that’s been worked on detail to detail for awhile and feels like passion went into it instead of just a throwing shit together real quick.

Look, having nuclear my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world it’s true! but when you're a conservative Republican they try oh, do they do a number that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners now it used to be three, now it’s four but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.

So the only time i have ever heard of this band is people talking about it on reddit. They sound pretty cool though . without having ever actually heard any of their music, it sounds like the way people talk about ween or primus. Like is this guy doin the "primus sucks" type of shit? I feel like i gotta hear it now...... Where are they from? I feel like i would have heard it before?

Cheers man!

Awesome, I'm gonna check that out now. Thanks :)

I will mention, their skill isn’t displayed as much in their studio stuff as much as the live stuff. But Jerry and Phil were both virtuoso-level players and improvisers. Late 60s were my favorite stuff!

Check out Turn On Your Love Light off of the album ‘Live/Dead’. Highly reccomend that whole album, it’s my favorite “official” live album of theirs! Some truly mindbending improv on there. Just pop that whole album on front to back for the whole experience

Ambrose is my favorite member of Gizz, so if he's equal to Pigpen, is there a Pigpen centric track that you could recommend?

Fair point. I need to do a deeper dive into their stuff here soon, for sure. Hopefully I'll see what you're talking about this time :)

Looks like I’ll catch a bunch of shit for saying this, but I can recognize their musical brilliance and still feel that OP is catching on to what I’ve also seen/heard while watching and giving King Gizzard a listen. Their songs drone on at long intervals, and can be repetitive with little payoff. Other songs sound just like other songs of theirs. I’ve watched a live session and just got bored. Bands like A Giant Dog, The Chats, Wet Leg can keep it short, and keep it interesting. Just sayin

Since you’ve clearly just read a bad review of flying microtonal banana and used it to justify your opinion without listening to the bands catalogue, we can use that as an example. The criticism seems to be that they are using Turkish microtonal scales in a chord based progressive context and that’s bad, which would be valid if they were making traditional Turkish music. I think the album is cool because they had the idea to use microtonal as a means of dissonance… the whole point is that it doesn’t “work” with chord driven songs. If you ever make the effort to dive a bit deeper into their catalogue, they do a lot of other interesting things that I think are pretty inventive things like microtonal key change modulation that to my knowledge are pretty unique in modern rock. You can say it’s bad if you want, and I can disagree. Is the branding and drooling over the instruments they modified for the album a bit cringe? Sure, but I don’t think this alone makes them a gimmick band like you’ve implied. I don’t think the band is trying to be “mainstream,” nor do I think they are trying to cater to pretentious math rock types that fetishize unconventional songwriting, I legitimately think they are doing this because it is how they are inspired to create new music.

The fact that you keep talking asking about chords tells me you have a very loose grasp on music theory. Are you asking if they have songs that use chords besides simple major and minor? I’ve already discussed the chromatic elements of their songs, they use tons of non-standard chords. Their newest album is jazz influenced… go listen to that, not that it will change anything here since you’re just mad that your favorite subreddit picked them as the band of the week last week.

I’m not sure id say their technical chops are better than the dead…. Nobody in Gizz plays guitar or bass like Jerry or Phil, but then again I’d take Cavs over Billy/Mickey any day. Ambrose=Pigpen tho

Mate complex chord progressions don’t equal good songs. Buuut if you actually had listened to the band you’ll find quite a few bands interesting progressions, but they aren’t shoved in your face. KG aren’t trying to make radio hits.

Also, the microtonal concept wasn’t intended to be like “Woahh this so so complex”, they were intentionally trying to bring them in in a subtle way that is still listenable to most western rock fans.

First, you're really advocating for gate keeping? Interesting.

Second, KGLW are independent musicians who haven't been pigeonholed into one specific genre by a greedy record label that is afraid to take risks because it might lose them profits. They're artists.

Third, their technical chops are far superior to the likes of The Dead. These guys figured out ways to incorporate microtones in a major way into not one, but three albums.

Fourth and final, keep dancing that bitter boogie. Someone will read this post, investigate Gizz, and fall in love. The wierdo swarm grows ever larger and more powerful.

They have albums dominated by power chords. You literally just used some buzz words without explaining your claim of them being this complex band. Once again didn’t bring up qotsa, do I consider qotsa complex? Ehh not the first thing that comes to mind, definitely more inventive than king gizzard for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. Back to the microtonal dumbing down and boxing the microtonal guitars into a very western context is by no means complicated. Like saying including a theremin on a song makes it inherently complex. Where’s the complex chord progressions? Time signatures are overblown so many bands have played around with odd time signatures, the real prize is having a song breach the mainstream as an odd time signature which they of course don’t have.

Nah gizz reigns supreme they’re the best band out there, so original, so prolific

Ok, just addressing the key points here.

It doesn’t seem like you’ve really listened to much of the band or you would hear a distinct sound/motifs reminiscent of their garage rock days, or riffs/motifs from other songs that they frequently call back to, connecting their discography. Even characters in the lyrics are shared between albums.

Next point, bad lyrics? Depends on which song. Some songs are repetitive, some simple, and some that are 100% narrative driven. What Gizzard is excellent at is telling a story, which is what really makes a great song great imo.

Multiple genres isn’t bad, especially when they do them so well. I grew up listening to thrash and stoner metal, and they’ve put out some of my favorite songs in those genres. I could understand if the music was shit, and was produced in volume only to make more money, but that isn’t the case. They shelved an album for 5 years until they felt it was right. I really appreciate their output honestly, I don’t need 5 albums a year but like, wow. Compare that to being a tool fan, I had to wait 12 years for the last album to come out.

As for feeling that you shouldn’t have to see people talk about them so much…..keep scrolling? They’re talked about because their great, and they seem to have a lot of fun making and playing music.

Change, Altered Beast IV, Supreme Ascendancy, and Horology all prove this incredibly wrong

Punctuation?

It’s pretty obvious you haven’t actually listened to much kgatlw or are just super trenched into your argument. Saying that they just use power chords is flat out wrong, they use more interesting time signatures, polyrhythms, modal mixing, and yes, microtones, than any popular touring band that comes to my mind, and in my opinion I think that this lends to interesting songwriting. I’m not even trying to say I don’t like QOTSA… but it’s super easy to pick apart your “bring gatekeeping back” bullshit by turning it back on the bands that you seem to enjoy.

You sound like you listened to half of one of their albums and formed an opinion. I guarantee you their is a lot more to their music than that.

That's a lot of rambling words to say you've never really listened to King Gizzard. 🙄

Workingman's Dead? American Beauty? Europe 72? What the fuck are you talking about?

"i ain't reading all that

i'm happy for u tho

or sorry that happened"

Dude king gizzard are not complex and I didn’t bring up qotsa who aren’t all that complex but definitely leagues more complicated than king gizzard when the song calls for it. His perversion of the microtonal guitar isn’t complex… it’s literally the opposite have you heard Turkish music and the guitarists that have been playing micro tonal instruments for years? It’s not even close to the same… so what kinda complex music are you talking about exactly? They aren’t doing any virtuoso musical impressions ala a mahavishnu orchestra or Zappa? Where’s their complex chord progressions? They’re no Elliot smith, no grizzly bear, hell queens keep fresh with his octave pinky trick listen to bandoliers by tcv wanna hear “complex” chord voicings. King gizzard is power chords, wtf do they do complicated harmonies nope, so ya nice try bud