Review: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island

Style: symphonic rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Electric Light Orchestra, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Love, Supertramp, Motorpsycho
Country: Australia
Release date: 13 June 2025

Twenty-seven studio albums in a plethora of genres within thirteen years—and no sign of stopping. That is the modus operandi of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The genre-hopping gimmick and incomprehensible prolificness have netted the Aussie sextet an absolutely massive cult following as their work ethic and (apparently) riotously fun live act have captured the hearts of terminally online music nerds and casuals alike. On the Gizzy Lizzy’s newest record, Phantom Island, the group has attempted something new stylistically yet again: orchestration.

Originally written and recorded alongside 2024’s Gizzard version of boogie rock (Flight b741)—remnants of which remain in the new record—Phantom Island was deemed incomplete by the band, who enlisted Chad Kelly to compose orchestrations to be superimposed atop the original studio tracks. The result is energetic symphonic and progressive pop/rock, similar to Electric Light Orchestra. Blaring brass and uptempo hand drums create a full soundscape at the expense of drowning the listener in its cheesy outdatedness of Phantom Island’s tone (“Deadstick,” “Eternal Return,” “Panpsych”). Vocal harmonies straight out of the late 60s crop up all over the place (“Eternal Return,” “Aerodynamic, “Sea of Doubt”). Unfortunately, when frontman Stu Mackenzie takes sole vocal responsibilities, he has a tendency to slide into a grating, unrefined falsetto (“Deadstick,” “Silent Spirit,” “Grow Wings and Fly”) that feels out of place with the prettier orchestral arrangements on Phantom Island.

Chad Kelly and the Wizardy Lizardys’ arranging skills are at times brilliant. On the opener and title track, “Phantom Island,” a descending piano motif acts as a throughline across the jazzy track; the song culminates in a speedy, jam build-up, raucous yet focused. Tracks like “Lonely Cosmos,” with its acoustic ditty intro and psychedelic jazz conclusion, and “Aerodynamic,” with its excellent blues guitar tone, craft enough of an identity to stand out from the rest of Phantom Island—an album that, yet again, finds King Gizzard mostly playing firmly within their comfort zone.

Despite the different aesthetic surface differentiating any King Wizard & The Lizard Gizzard album from another, KGATLW know exactly who they are. Whether they’re playing with microtonality, thrashy sludge metal, electronic music, or spoken word, The Lizard Wizard & King Gizzard are the exact same under the hood; the group merely steal the aesthetic of a genre without any mind for composition or ethos. Phantom Island is progressive pop, jazzy, and, of course, symphonic, but at its core it’s another psychedelic jam album with the same structure as any of their other gazillion albums The record is utterly lifeless and boring apart from its couple aforementioned highlights. The horns sound forced, the record clearly not written with them in mind, and the songs that bristle with the most instruments are chaotic. Moreover, by the end of Phantom Island, The Lizard Wizards have basically dropped their schtick for the album, sounding outright like the psych rock band they are; I dearly miss the ELOisms of the earlier tracks starting at “Sea of Doubt” (although even those earlier ones often add a sort of ‘let’s-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya’ vibe that’s a bit too ingratiating). Orchestral elements still appear in the later tracks, but they seem completely detached from the main compositions, like the afterthought they are. 

Y’know what might have fixed some of the fundamental compositional issues? If the King Lizard spent more than a couple months releasing an album. The ‘chuck every composition into an LP’ approach has yielded winners for the Gizzard Wizard in the past, but their discography has far more stinkers because every album feels like an incomplete exploration of a sound. Is Phantom Island a fun record? Yes. And I know that King Lizard & The Gizzard Wizard will continue to be successful because of that, deservedly one may say. But I can’t help but feel like this opus—like most of their others—is vapid pastiche as far as artistic merit goes.

Recommended tracks: Phantom Island, Lonely Cosmos, Aerodynamic
You may also like: Himmellegeme, Adjy, Kosmodome
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: p(doom) – Bandcamp | Official Website

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is:
– Ambrose Kenny-Smith – vocals (all tracks), piano (tracks 1, 2, 4–6, 9, 10)
– Michael Cavanagh – drums, percussion (all tracks)
– Cook Craig – bass (tracks 1, 3, 8, 10), Mellotron (tracks 1, 6), organ (tracks 2, 4, 9), vocals (tracks 1, 3, 4, 8, 10)
– Joey Walker – guitar (all tracks), bass (tracks 1, 4, 5), vocals (tracks 2, 4–7, 9, 10)
– Lucas Harwood – bass (tracks 1, 2, 4–7, 9, 10), piano (track 4), vocals (tracks 4, 5)
– Stu Mackenzie – guitar, vocals (all tracks), bass (tracks 1, 3–8), Mellotron (tracks 1–3, 5, 6), organ, piano (track 1)
With additional musicians:
– Sam Joseph – pedal steel (tracks 5, 8, 10)
– Chad Kelly – orchestral arrangements, piano
– Brett Kelly – conductor
– Tim Wilson, Lachlan Davidson, Phil Noy – saxophone
– Patrick McMullin, Daniel Beasy, Shane Hooton – trumpet
– Chris Vizard, James Bowman, Joe O’Callaghan – trombone
– Abbey Edlin – French horn
– Wendy Clarke, Lachlan Davidson – flute
– Natasha Fearnside – clarinet
– Matthew Kneale – bassoon
– Madeleine Jevons, Jos Jonker, Miranda Matheson, Ruby Paskas, Josephine Chung – violin
– Merewyn Bramble, Karen Columbine – viola
– Gemma Kneale, Paul Zabrowarny – cello