For a while now, people have been telling me I need to check out Australia’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. I’ve heard tales of a band who change musical styles more often than Neil Young—and that’s quite an accomplishment there.

So, like I try to do for any artist or band that I know nothing about, I go for the debut releases. In this case, it would be the 2011 independent EP Anglesea. Interestingly, band leader Stu Mackenzie says of this release: “Don’t listen to it—it’s fake.” By this, he means he wasn’t 100 percent sure the full lineup took part in its recording. (It wasn’t fake enough to exclude from the 2020 compilation Teenage Gizzard, where I listened to these four tracks—but not the whole album. Yet.)

I have been told many things about Mackenzie and crew. What I was not expecting was to hear what was essentially a punk-surf band.

It’s noisy. It’s crude. It’s unlistenable at times. But... there is a spark of something I can hear that piques my curiosity.

Look, I’m not going to lie. For a 12-minute EP, this doesn’t really tell anyone much about the band. And, had this been the only thing they ever put out, I’d probably have written them off completely. Recorded on the cheap, as lo-fi as possible, it’s difficult to honestly say that one can hear any seeds of greatness being germinated. The leadoff tracks “Eddie Cousin” and “Fried” don’t offer up a whole lot of hope for that.

Then, you get to “Good To Me” and “Tomb/Beach.” It is in these songs where, if you sit and listen closely, you find yourself wondering where this band came from, and how they kicked the band from the previous two songs to the curb. The vocals (which were barely present on the previous two songs) are stronger here, and one gets the idea that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard were finally getting warmed up. Unfortunately, the EP ends there. (The band would follow up later in the year with a second EP, Willoughby’s Beach, before releasing their debut full-length album in 2012.)

Is Anglesea a great record? Heavens, no—but there’s enough on the second half of the disc that warrants one to search this out and give it a listen. I know long-time readers will argue that one shouldn't base an opinion on any artist or band just on their first recorded effort—and I’m certainly not expecting to hear other releases from Mackenzie and crew follow in the exact same pattern. But I’ve heard enough to make me want to keep investigating—something I don’t often say when I rate something the way I’ve rated this disc.

Rating: C-

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