Fishing for Fishies: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard The Boogieman is NOT Real – Review
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s latest album, Fishing for Fishies, had me hooked from start to finish. The album had a robot-boogies-with-the-blues kind of vibe, illustrated by the robot with a fishing rod in the album cover art.
The album started off with Fishing for Fishies, an upbeat blues-rock track that is extremely catchy, but certainly won’t catch any fish. The track is for the fish; after giving it a listen you may think twice before you pick up a fishing pole—or not. The following song, Boogieman Sam, is the first of three “boogies” on the album. The song incorporates a lot of the fun bluesy aspects from Fishing for Fishies, making Boogieman Sam seem much less terrifying than the boogieman I remember from my nightmares as a kid. The next boogie, Plastic Boogie, starts to infuse electronic “robot” sounds with the bluesy undertones that were more prevalent in previous tracks. Plastic Boogie feels more rushed and chaotic than the earlier songs on the album, criticizing the amount of plastic waste that is ending up in our oceans. The last boogie on the album, Cyboogie, no longer retains any bluesy undertones. It is the first song on the album that fully abandons the bluesy aspects of the rest of the album in favor of the electronic “robot” tones that were gradually becoming more prevalent as the album went on. The boogies all made me want to boogie, yes, but they also got me thinking about the real issues that the tracks address: climate change, pollution, and the state of our current environment.
Along with addressing real world issues, King Gizzard looks to the sky and starts asking the real questions: What is real? “Real’s Not Real”, according to King Gizzard. And “to a bird what’s a plane?”. I never thought to ask such a question, but now I can’t get the birds and the planes off of my mind. The Bird Song is my favorite track on the album; maybe it’s because I’m a bird. And if I’m a bird you’re a bird. Maybe we are all just birds. Either way, we can all learn something from the birds and the planes, and the boogies and the fish. If we don’t, well, Ill let King Gizzard explain the rest.
King Gizzard hit nail into the dock with this one. I would say Fishing for Fishies is the real deal, but it’s not. Neither is the boogieman. Real’s not real, after all.
Edited by Spencer Smith
