This week I listened to From Time to Time by Eggy. Eggy are a psychedelic-ish band who's album I am reviewing was put out by one Flightless Records.
For those unaware, Flightless Records is the record label owned and operated by one Eric Moore, who was formerly the second drummer in King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The label was formed to put out King Gizzard's first album and was kind of a cornerstone of independent music in Australia in the late 2010s. I've always wanted a chance to talk about the degradation of both King Gizzard and Flightless Records, so I shall use the weekly album review of Eggy's album as the medium to do so. If you wanna see my actual thoughts on the album, skip to the bottom of the review.
It is my belief that King Gizzard is one of the best bands, and certainly a personal favorite of mine, to have put out music in the 2010s. I don't think there is a single less than 8/10 album in their entire discography from their first album in 2012 up until Infest the Rats' Nest in 2019. Being a fan of theirs in that period was certainly quite the time to be alive. I started listening to them at some point in 2018 and quickly became a fan. While they didn't release any albums that year, they released 2 in 2019 and I was present for the release of both. You never knew what the band was going to do next! The fan base was also quite fun to be around at the time. The band had not quite reached the Grateful Dead-esque following they now have, and were treated as any normal moderately successful band that had a cult following. As I said earlier, the band was firing on all cylinders at the time, having come off of the release of 5 albums in 2017 and then the 2 in 2019. The aforementioned Infest the Rats' Nest was quite something too, since it was the first time the band had delved into metal at all. The band's label was also doing quite well at the time too. They had a few fairly popular bands signed to their label - being acts like Leah Senior, Tropical Fuck Storm, Babe Rainbow, and Amyl & The Sniffers - along with some smaller groups who were certainly appreciated by the King Gizzard fans as they were similar in style to them - these being ORB and Stonefield. Then, as always comes up when talking about this time period, the pandemic hit.
By the end of 2020 after not hearing much from King Gizzard, we had a new single called "Honey" which was a return to their experiments involving microtonal music. It was... fine. I had never felt so just okay about a King Gizzard song prior to this. On top of that, it was announced that Eric Moore had left the band due to the fact that he was spending more time running the label. Now musically, this is not a huge loss. Sure, the band did some cool double drum stuff every now and again, but Eric was not integral when it came to writing the music. He barely even played on some of their latest albums so losing him in theory shouldn't have been a problem, but it just so happened the band took a nosedive in the quality of their music. The resulting 2 albums of this new microtonal experiments, KG and LW, were very much just fine. It sounded King Gizzard-ish, but it was missing the sparks of the best King Gizzard albums to me. I don't want the band to sound like them, they should be them! It is also worth noting that aside from a live album released in 2021, these were the last King Gizzard albums released by Flightless. By that point, the two had cut ties. It is speculated that the band felt they were outgrowing the label, which could be true, but we'll never know the real answer. Since then, Flightless has only released 15 albums, which may seem like a lot but all but 2 of those, being Eggy's album I am reviewing and an album by Orb, were released prior to from 2021 to 2023. From here, King Gizzard have released 10 more albums, having another 5 of them come out in 2022. I want to highlight that specifically because this is where I feel King Gizzard really start taking a turn for the worst musically.
The concept of a jam band should be interesting in theory. I love it when a band jams on songs, and King Gizzard have shown they can do it quite well. Songs like "Head On/Pill" or anything off of their album Quarters shows they are very capable musicians and can sustain jams amazing jams. They do it quite well live as well, incorporating all these teases of other songs into their jams which they extended much further than the studio versions. They even, in my opinion, perfected seamless song transitions which is something jam bands are known for. They were set up perfectly to be a jam band. So explain to me how they messed it up so badly. Ever since the release of the first album in their "Gizztober" of 2022, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava, the band has butchered their jams. It feels like they have no idea what to play and they become so extended and meandering. It feels that way on the albums they've produced since they entered this jam heavy state too. Prior to this, they were always coming up with interesting melodies and unique sounding instrumentals, but on every album post the jamening has felt so lost and directionless and... BLAND. Except for Petrodragonic Apocalypse, that was a great metal album and probably the best thing the band has put out since the Infest the Rats' Nest. I remember hearing the first single from their album Flight b741 and being appalled by it. What was once one of the most creative rock groups out there, able to tackle so many genres and styles in their own unique way, had been reduced the most bland, wishy-washy, hear it in a car commercial, Blues Rock band. Their live performances were just getting less and less bearable as well as they leaned further into the jams. They extended most of their normal shows to 2 hours but because most of their songs had become so bloated due to the extended jamming it made no difference.
The fanbase has also gotten a bit out of control. I've noticed this ever since the growth they experienced in 2019 but especially post Gizztober that many of their fans just feel the band can never release bad music. This is not necessarily a bad thing! I would love to be able to love a band's entire discography, but the issue is that the band is worshiped in such a way that if you go against it at all then you are demonized for it. You MUST like all the albums or else you are foolish and your opinion is not worth listening to. Aside the snobbishness there is also just this idea of having to "experience" the band that has come up. You have to buy multiple vinyl variants and you must see them live and buy the posters after waiting for an hour in the merchandise line and then you need to be in the pit and also be at the front of the venue! It is just a culture that does not appeal to me.
I mourn the loss of what was once my favorite modern band. Endlessly creative and releasing amazing album after amazing album. I knew it was going to drop off at some point, but to drop off this hard makes me feel terrible. I've found other bands to listen to, but none replace that King Gizzard shaped hole in my heart.
I mourn the loss of Flightless Records. While technically not dead they are on life support. I would love to buy music from them again, but almost nothing gets put out on it anymore. King Gizzard leaving them, among a couple other artists such as Amyl, really killed all the momentum the label had going for it. King Gizzard's p(doom) don't seem to be a great replacement either from what I've heard.
Now onto the review! This is quite the interesting album as it shows a lot of different influences that blend really nicely to create something a little bit unique sounding. There are hints of 60s psychedelia, standard indie/alternative rock, and even some Krautrock/Kosmische Musik in there. It all comes together to create an album that is constantly showing different sides of itself, so it never feels stale. These are also good genres to mix together, as they result in a nice mix of interesting and unique sounding compositions, which is the more 60s psychedelia sound, but also leaves room for experimenting and jamming, which is the more Krautrock side of things. A song like, "Open Field" shows this best, where the first half of it really leans into the Krautrock sound with the driving Motorik drum groove, but in the second half becomes a nice mix of the psychedelia and rock elements with pretty melodies and chord progressions but this driving, distorted bass. The album sounds pretty good too, aside from the drums being too compressed for my liking (which is a gripe I have with a lot of modern rock albums haha), with a nice clear production that lets all the pretty strings and piano parts shine through the more standard rock instruments. This is an album that would be a pain to listen to if it was all muddy, as it is quite layered. This is certainly an album I find worth revisiting for something a little different and it makes me excited to listen to the rest of Eggy's discography. 8/10
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