Review by Rexorcist for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023)

Let's be honest: King Gizzard are a bunch of dorks, despite the quality of their music.  For years their clever usage of garage-rock and punkish monotony took the musical underground by storm.  two-hour long psychedelic albums would make this "projects" band comparable to The Grateful Dead, and they were one of those bands you only listened to if you were a "real" music buff.  And then they became a thrash metal band.  I was surprised with the good reception of Infest the Rats' nest, but I haven't gotten around to it just yet.  I figured the thrash thing would just be a gimmick rather than a serious new side of them.  And then PetroDragonic Apocalypse gets ALL the ladies  I may be a Christian, but I love album covers with giant dragon motherfuckers telling the world it's his bitch.  With reception on par with a classic-era thrash album or a Vektor album displayed on the internet, how could I refuse and stay true to myself?  I'm a thrash and prog fanatic, and I can't get enough of it because there ISN'T enough of it, at least not enough that's good.  So I put this on.

Son of a bitch.  That Motorhead influence TACKLED me.  The album is filled with repetitive but engaging progressive structures that leave the rest of the work to the charisma of the band harmonizing their vocals and jamming like hell.  Even when playing a melody properly, these guys KNOW HOW TO JAM.  And it isn't just because they've always been jammers due to their psych rock history, but they revive a side of metal that has been consistently overshadowed by the extremities of black and death as well as the surreal behavior of many modern acts like Oranssi Pazuzu, Krallice and Blut Aus Nord: the side of metal that jammed back in the days of 80's speed metal.  This made the album stand out among the rest of the metal crowd.  And because Gizzard also made sure to keep their fuzz factor in mind, this prog-thrash album also has stoner and sludgy undertones working with the Motorhead influence to further empower the jam factor.  Thus, the personality is usually more engaging than the actual progressive structures, which themselves offer only a few surprises and may not be so enjoyable without the KG vibe. There are even some trippier moments scattered around that heavily recall the psychedelic side without falling into the genre.  So the band is balancing out Motorhead, apocalyptic surreality, metallic jam factor and punk monotony all with their signature vibe fully intact.  That's pretty ingenious, and almost fully justifies the occasionally lacking proggy structures.  But get this: they saved the best for last.  The nine-minute Flamethrower shows all the best of the previously mentioned aspects in the roughest display of heaviness on the album with abnormal consistency.  It even includes the only actual psychedelic rock riff on the album, and it fits in no problem.

So maybe the individual tracks of PetroDragonic Apocalypse aren't the "best" thrash songs ever written, but they certainly are fun.  Any aspects that shouldn't be very surprising are made much more surprising because King Gizzard implemented their psychedelic garage essence and personality into the thrash genre so well that this album, while being a completely different genre, still remains a King Gizzard album.  The album didn't reach my lowest reasonable expectations.  It was a little higher, but not the masterpiece the internet made it out to be IMO.  But it seriously proves that Gizzard can pretty much do anything, assuming they aren't putting out six albums a year for the online rep.  I feel that thrash fans should listen to this potential modern classic, but you'll get more out of it if you're already familiar with a few classic garage or psychedelic King Gizzard albums.  This album represents one of the most effortless genre transitions I've ever seen out of hearing nearly 12,000 albums.  But if you really wanna know what a prog Motorhead sounds like, then listen to this as soon as you can.  King Gizzard have always been masters of monotony and personality through repetition, and their second thrash outing does their wacky catalog full justice.

92/100.