Polygondwanaland is the twelfth studio album by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. The album was released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license, although the band allows their fans to make remixes. The band uploaded the master tapes online for anyone to freely use. The fourth of five albums released by the band in 2017, it was released on 17 November 2017. The album's title is a portmanteau of the words polygon and Gondwanaland. Polygondwanaland first appeared as a partial leak on the band's demos for the album. The leak was uploaded to SoundCloud in April 2017, but was soon taken down. As a result, news of the album was scarce and mostly involved rumours, one of which stated that it would be the last of the five albums released in 2017. olygondwanaland was generally well received by professional music critics upon its initial release. In a 4 out of 5 star review for AllMusic, writer Tim Sendra claimed "Hearing them incorporate all the different sonic flourishes they've employed in the past in pursuit of good songs and not some higher concept means the album may slip past unnoticed, but it will sound great to anyone not scared off by the lack of theatrics. Tracks like the spookily restrained "Searching," the rampaging "The Fourth Colour," the tribal "The Castle in the Air," or the thrumming title track are the work of a band in full command of their process and results."
This is a prog-rock MASTERPIECE. From the incredible opener, the loyalty suite, the worldbuilding, to the incredible lyrics.... this isn't my favorite Gizz album, but I have to admit it is pretty damn close.
No Lizard Wizard on spotify anymore? 🥺
This is a group I’ve kept meaning to listen to. Very entertaining! I seem to be more into psychedelic music more as I have aged. I did no expect to have my tastes expand over time but they seem to have. Terrific!
A sprawling and groovy King Gizzard album, and one of the highlights of their ridiculously prolific 2017 run (this was the 4th of 5 albums they released that year, and their 12th overall since their debut in 2012) After dabbling with microtonal acid rock, blistering prog-metal, and jazz-inspired psych-pop on their previous 2017 releases, Polygondwanaland combines some elements of the three and as a result sounds the most comfortable and distinctly King Gizzard record of the lot - rather than King Gizzard’s version of a certain genre It kicks off with the epic Crumbling Castle, whose nearly 11 minute runtime absolutely flies by, and contains some other absolute bangers with Inner Cell, Horology, and the fuzzy prog of The Fourth Colour I don’t think it’s quite as consistent as the previous year’s Nonagon Infinity, as impressive and punchy as Infest the Rats Nest or Petrodragonic Apocalypse, or as fun as Fishing for Fishies or Paper Maché Dream Balloon - but its still a hell of a record and borders on top 5 Gizz territory
The best prog rock album I’ve ever heard. These guys rule. Their name rules.
If TOOL is too heavy for you. Listen to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Maybe they are even more inventive and a tat more psychedelic. But I see some parallels. Fantastic album
This is a great record, I'm a huge fan. And it's awesome that they moved off Spotify on to Bandcamp. I wish more artists would do that.
Polygondwanaland is one of the many many and more albums of the prog rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. This album is full of good psychedelic prog rock. "Crumbling Castle" is one of my favorites of their songs.
One of their best
They are not good enough to warrant this many entries. Stop trying to make King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard happen.
Superb
YESSSSS KING GIZZZZZZ. Such a fun time bendy album.
is KG&TLW the great band to ever exist?! I’m easy to please, and prog rock is one of the quickest ways to my heart - 10/10
This one really shows off one of their biggest strengths as a band: being huge music theory nerds. It's something that shows up in most of their music, but this album goes all-in on the polyrhythm theme, making it probably one of the better entry points to pitch someone on them. I think it's the most intellectual out of their albums in that way—feels way more composed and way less jammy than their usual speed
Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Crumbling castle, Horology, Tetrachromacy, Searching…
Cool album! Will listen to more of theirs.
I remember being a bit fatigued by this one when it dropped in 2017, the 4th out of 5 total LPs King Gizzard would drop that year. With time, though, it's clear this is one of the best out of that lot. Gizzard embracing prog in full feels like a foregone conclusion as they weave countless themes into the monstrous but agile 'Castle' as an introduction. The remaining tracks flesh out these ideas, building on earlier motifs in the traditionally insane way King Gizz operates. The album does seem ponderous in places, and it's not nearly as tightly bound as some others in the band's discography, but the overall sum of these parts into a sonic journey evokes a sense of completion much like Nonagon Infinity's looping structure. Solid add from the golden era of Gizz \m/
Really enjoyable. Proggy and wandering but with good energy. Good share and worth the trouble to find on YouTube.
Pretty sure there was a prior offering by this band, and I can't remember how I felt about it. I liked this a lot anyway, very fully realized, prog-ish psychedelic rock. I couldn't make much out of the lyrics (I gather there's an active subreddit full of people trying to unwind their meaning so maybe that's not so surprising), but it certainly sounded interesting and I liked the oddly choral singing. Reading up on the band their extremely prodigious output was also impressive, especially if it's generally on par with this.
This album fucks! Production is immaculate. These guys don’t sound like anyone else and it’s always very refreshing. If anything, they sound too much like themselves, which I would say is their biggest crutch. Their success in sounding different from any other band leads them to relax into their own sound and not risk evolving. That’s not entirely true for every album, but the three albums of theirs I’ve listened to all sounded fairly similar. All very enjoyable, but they certainly have a formula. I like the formula, though. 4/5
Polymeters :D
This is rocky music that plays while you listen
overall enjoyed but didn't engage me 2.6
Did these guys remove all their music from Spotify? I'm not a huge fan but I've listened to them before, and they had a LOT of albums last time I checked. Problem is, without being able to hear it I have no idea what it'll be - every album is different with this band. Maybe I'll look on YouTube for a few songs from it. Listened to a song or two. Not bad. 3/5.
Frustrating that KG removed all their music from Spotify. Though don’t disagree with their actions just means I won’t bother listening it today and rate it on previous listened. This is a good album within their discography, not one of my personal favourites, but with a band with so many records it’s hard to pick a top 5. I sometimes do wonder if they would be better if they had a bit more focus on quality over quantity, but then their volume of output is what makes them stand out from the crowd. Overall though there is definitely room for a few KG albums on this list.
Progressive rock, psychedelic rock. Ni fu ni fa.
Pretty damn good. Smartly played, energetic, highly listenable prog. Fave Songs: Horology, Crumbling Castle, Polygondwanaland, Loyalty, The Castle in the Air
Another King Gizzard album, this one being an uptempo rock mix with some interesting instrumentals to give it some funky feel as well king Gizzard is one of those bands that are so unique and constantly releasing music that as a casual it’s hard to keep up and know what is their normal, but that’s probably their goal is to not have a normal. This one is pretty good although somewhat heavy instrumental, it does have a Radiohead-esque feel to it at times and is a decent listen. 6.6/10
See the little goblin, see his little feet! And his little nosy-wose, isn't the goblin sweet!
Lyrical and almost every other choice makes this inaccessible to listeners
Unable to listen to it on Spotify