Phantom Island by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

As the old adage goes, “another year, another fantastic King Gizzard album.” I’ve only actively listened to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard for just over two years, which makes me a downright KGLW noob. But it was practically love at first listen, with their 2024 album Flight b471 landing at (#20 that year) and their two 2023 albums, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord landing at (#5 that year).

Phantom Island, the band’s 27th studio album ¹, is the sibling to last year’s Flight b471, as the core tracks were recorded currently for both albums. The band has explained that they put the “rowdy” songs on Flight, leaving the non-rowdy songs to eventually end up on Phantom Island, but not without some additional production. The songs that would eventually end up on the new album “felt like they needed this other energy and colour,” said frontman Stu Mackenzie. “We needed to splash some different paint on the canvas.”

It helps to be a global band with a massive following – the “other energy and colour” turned out to be the addition of British conductor Chad Kelly, who wrote elaborate orchestral arrangements for the songs and assembled a group of musicians to dub over the original tracks. The album that resulted feels like an extension of the 70s roots rock ethos developed on Flight b471 cranked to 11. The Reeses Peanut Butter Cup commercial comes to mind, but instead of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s “you got your symphony in my rock & roll!” vs “you got your rock & roll in my symphony!” Somehow it all works. “Grow Wings and Fly” (featured above) has gorgeous subtle strings flowing throughout the song. “Deadstick” has the entire brass section going hog wild².

As I mentioned at the end of last year’s review of Flight b471, my fandom of KGLW grew to the point where I was flying to another city to watch them perform. Throughout 2025, the band toured globally, performing with the local symphony in each locale. So, off to San Diego I went to witness the spectacle first hand. KGLW have the reputation of a jam band, as they tend to not play the same songs at consecutive performances. (Having 27 albums of material to pull from makes it quite easy to not duplicate, but quite a task to keep the band fresh and ready to go on any number of hundreds of songs for each concert.) But playing with a 30-40 person orchestra with a conductor leading the charge made their usual fluidity impossible.

What transpired in San Diego was still fantastic: a tight two-hour set, performing Phantom Island in its entirety, with a 20-minute intermission (where the band played an extended version of one of my favorites, “Motor Spirit”). They did play many other past KGLW songs, now reworked for an orchestra accompaniment, and it was glorious. Would do again.

Phantom Island is not King Gizzard’s best album. But with 27 albums now under their belt, the creative output of the six-piece is still surprisingly top notch. And they’re still having so much infectious fun, it’s impossible to not smile any time you hear and see them. If you give this album and find it’s not your speed, I suggest diving into one of the two 2023 albums mentioned above (if one doesn’t work, try the other). If that doesn’t work, keep trying. There is so much variety in their music, I guarantee something will eventually click. And then you and I can book tickets to see them jam out somewhere soon. I’d love that.

^{1. The band’s debut, 12 Bar Bruise, came out in 2012. Phantom Island came out in 2025, with 25 studios albums having been released between those two records. That’s an insane pace of creativity for any band: nearly two albums a year, every year, in under less than a decade and a half.↩} ^{2. The band released a 13 minute documentary, The Making of Phantom Island, which doesn’t so much tell the story of the making of the album but instead provides a mishmash of clips that gives a tonal overview of how it all came together.↩}