Float Along - Fill Your Lungs (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard)

MADE for radio it ain't.

Float Along - Fill Your Lungs by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

MADE for radio it ain't. At 15-plus minutes, Head On/Pill, the first track on this Melbourne seven-piece's second album in a year, is a feverish cacophony of psychedelia interspersed with brain-splitting feedback squeals, surf-rock riffs and frequent sitar twangs.

It's discordant and a trifle discombobulating, but boy, is it fun. And that's the most lovable thing about King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (apart from what's probably Australia's greatest band name): the self-described "completely fried theremin-wielding psychopaths" are fun and fearless.

This year's first release (their second LP), Eyes like the Sky, was billed as a spaghetti western audiobook, and that's exactly what it was: a swaggering, gunshot-punctuated soundtrack to a film Quentin Tarantino really should have made. While not western-themed, Float Along - Fill Your Lungs is equally brave and experimental.

After the mammoth opener the tracks become shorter, without losing any of their predecessor's fuzz-filled ambition. The vocals sound as if they're being sung down a crackly international phone line. There are some muffled coughs heralding the start of God is Calling Me Back Home, a cheerfully murderous guitar jam, and some muted applause at the end of the sunny Pop in My Step. A vintage Juno-60 keyboard synthesiser plays its part and all of these elements add to the homespun yet powerful vibe of the album, which was recorded in sheds, garages and thrown-together studios. Long live King Gizzard.

Rating: 3.5 stars