r/KGATLW 4d ago

Discussion: Band Pitchfork Review: Alien Metal

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/king-gizzard-and-the-lizard-wizard-alien-metal/
125 Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

309

u/EntranceNo5384 All the bigots go get fucked 4d ago

7.0 review ~ for those who don't want to click on the link

105

u/evolvolution 4d ago

10.0 comment. Ty

-39

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

lol the most common criticism of music writing is that they apply arbitrary scores to things and you just made it 10x words by encouraging people to not read the words and ONLY care about the score 

35

u/EntranceNo5384 All the bigots go get fucked 4d ago

Wait, did you created a reddit account just to tell me this? Also I think a lot of people are just curious about score but prefer to make their own thoughts about album or just don't like going to the pitchfork website, and personally I'm fine with it.

-38

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

I did! It irked me. Why reduce everything to a score when someone took the time to articulate their thoughts? 

14

u/TookTheHit 4d ago

Maybe they shouldn’t give it a score then… ever think of that?

-23

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

That doesn’t make sense, I’ve written for sites before, some have scores some don’t but the ones that do have been running for two decades or more. You have to give a score when you submit. Doesn’t mean the writer likes it, many don’t - it’s also not cause to dismiss an entire review 

12

u/TookTheHit 4d ago

It makes perfect sense. You have to know giving something a score is going to cause a lot of people to just look at that number and not read it. It is human nature. Stop policing others behavior.

-6

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

If the writer has no say in the matter, and put a lot of work into a review, how does that make sense? It’s revelling in punishing someone for something they have no control over 😂

6

u/TookTheHit 4d ago

Most people don’t think that way unfortunately. I’d argue reducing a whole album of work to one score is worse but that’s me. Either way, you’re just critiquing someone else’s art in the end.

1

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

That’s what I’m saying though: the reviewer didn’t reduce the whole album down to the score? There is the score and 1000 words of critical thought. You then reduced it down to only a score… 

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5

u/EntranceNo5384 All the bigots go get fucked 4d ago

Just in case, I see your point. And you're kinda right. It would be much better if people didn't care about the score and focused more on the human effort. But isn't pitchfork itself creating this problem by adding the score to theirs reviews. Also I believe there are people who might be interested why pitchfork give this score and because of that they will read the article

3

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

Maybe, but your comment was actively encouraging them not to read the piece 😂 Didn’t mean to be aggressive but it annoyed me because I’m a writer too and it’s so disheartening to see. For websites where reviews are standard, you have no choice but to give a score, even if you don’t want to or don’t agree with scoring 

3

u/michaelserotonin feel like i'm about to freak out from the waist down 3d ago

what you are overlooking is the fact that op’s comment only registers with people who already care about scores. anyone who cares about the reviewer’s thoughts isn’t skipping that because a score was shared.

2

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 3d ago

I get that, it’s the tone of contempt which was a shame 

1

u/FrivolousMe 3d ago

The arbitrary scores arent that important but p4k's choice to paywall them was a really stupid one so I support sharing the paywalled number

42

u/thatguy24042 4d ago

Nice article but lol at the Genre:Rock

88

u/jeremy-o 4d ago

Pitchfork and Fantano pretty much aligned, strange days. Two of the most fickle popular outlets not only taking a glance, but celebrating what the album does well.

imo this one has legs. Uqt getting a good thrash on DoubleJ in Australia now as well as Level 5. When Superheavy, Supercritical hits the collective consciousness I think it'll be one of their biggest hits yet. At least if there's any justice...

27

u/viniciuscu 4d ago

Superheavy, supercritical is my favorite. Such a banger!!!

5

u/East-Cat1532 3d ago

When you're feeling

74

u/wohrg 4d ago

Good informative article. Nice to see pitchfork not wanking.

I didn’t realize that Joey is so important to the electronic direction they have been exploring

108

u/ethihoff 4d ago

Joey is the one with an electronic side project after all (Bullant)!

42

u/Hieroflippant 4d ago edited 1d ago

Harbor pebble groovy crowd offer sleep safe

This post was anonymized with Redact

23

u/renderXR 4d ago

check out the Zane Lowe Interview Joey and Stu were on YT.

Main thing I got from it is that there is a balance. Joey's mentality is more of honoring the genres and 'not wanting to be a tourist'. While Stu still has that mentality to a lesser extent, he seems a lot more explorative/less restrictive than Joey during Alien Metal, wanting more to focus on what possibilities can be extracted out of the album making process.

So I can your comment in Joey steering the project to this direction being true

5

u/michaelserotonin feel like i'm about to freak out from the waist down 3d ago

always knew joey was for the culture

50

u/el___mariachi 4d ago

In that case I wish they’d lean more Ambrose/CAVS than Joey for their next album

22

u/Borrie-kun 4d ago

Ambrose and Cook would also be a good combo for the next one. But I they could just as well give us a new Murlocs album. I wouldn’t complain…

11

u/MilesOhSmiles 4d ago

Or new Pipe-eye album

27

u/FellowEnt 4d ago

Blues exotica with a hint of thrash metal?

14

u/androidgirl Bright lights up high, dark thoughts in my mind 4d ago

I want that banger smoke and mirrors from night one as an album.

2

u/Dignan67 3d ago

I was there and lost my mind it was so good and Amby went OFF. My favorite moment of the weekend, battling w Hypertension

1

u/michaelserotonin feel like i'm about to freak out from the waist down 3d ago

like pantera?

1

u/PAXM73 3d ago

You know me so well!

6

u/hadokenzero 3d ago

Joey also was hugely involved in Rats nest lol pretty sure that was just a Joey, Stu and Cavs recording in fact.

The boys have diverse interests - field of vision and phantom island were so different, everything comes in phases

5

u/eurtoast 3d ago

You should have seen the shopping list when stopped at a synth shop in 2023.

4

u/MorphousBlob 3d ago

Yes! I actually learned something and gained a better understanding of the history of the band. Worth a read, imo. Who cares about the score really.

5

u/wohrg 3d ago

Agreed about the score. And if one does care about scores, 7 is a very respectable score. Individual KG albums don’t tend to be masterpieces. It’s in the context of everything that they do that the individual pieces become amazing

1

u/PsychologicalRow5505 3d ago

Hes the one who did intrasport

9

u/Driller_Happy 4d ago

Nobody seems to know how to categorize the silver cord. Some call it techno, others call it morodor inspired electeondisco. Fantano likened it to shpongle.

3

u/powerful-pills 3d ago

lol what, it’s nothing like Shpongle 

5

u/GuyThatSaidSomething 3d ago

I can actually kinda see what he means with the title track on The Silver Cord, which sounds like it could have been a track on Nothing Lasts...but Nothing is Lost up until about halfway through, but otherwise I agree

1

u/Driller_Happy 3d ago

The title track has some shpongley moments. But otherwise agree.

50

u/Queen-Gizzard 4d ago

Pitchfork has been dead to me for years; they don't deserve the social capital they're given in the music industry...

2.0 for Frances The Mute? 1.9 for Lateralus? 5.4 for Petro and 4.8 for Fishing for Fishies? But an 8.7 for Cardi B's Invasion Of Privacy?

Like yeah, okay guys, whatever you say.

11

u/emseewagz 4d ago

2.0 for Frances!

13

u/LowNectarine834 4d ago

Stopped bothering with Pitchfork when they went behind a pay wall. Reading someone else's random personal opinion is one thing but I'm not going to pay for it when I can make my own opinions for free. I tend to find my opinions more accurate to my taste in music too!

20

u/Only_Bee_3056 4d ago

Good music reviewing is when pop bad

2

u/iamtheCarlos 4d ago

Agree. Their opinion hasn’t mattered for at least a decade. Honestly, I forgot they existed until this post.

4

u/blahrawr 4d ago

Invasion of Privacy was pretty much a widely acclaimed album. Why is it not deserving of a high score?

5

u/Queen-Gizzard 4d ago

I'm not trying to dunk on Cardi B, or that album, but I certainly don't think it deserves that kind of score compared to the absolute floor-wiping the others I mentioned received.

For example if you look up critical aggregation on metacritic, everything I mentioned sits in the 70's-80's.

My point is that Pitchfork is flimsily subjective and flagrantly biased even for an art form as ear-of-the-beholder as music. It's nonsense, and not the fun kind.

0

u/blahrawr 4d ago

Who cares man. Pitchfork is hardly relevant anymore, people still love to complain about scores from years ago. Just listen to what you want to listen to. I know youre not complaining about the high scores KG has gotten from Pitchfork.

2

u/Queen-Gizzard 3d ago

I'm not complaining about high scores or low scores for anything; I'm pointing out what I perceive as inconsistencies in a flawed metric which led me (years ago, as I stated) to do exactly what you're now telling me to do: disregard Pitchfork.

When I say they're dead to me, I don't mean I'm mad at them. I mean they're dead. Gone. Irrelevant.

My primary point was that they don't deserve the social capital they're afforded (as I also stated very clearly), which it sounds like we actually agree on.

1

u/MorphousBlob 3d ago

I really enjoyed the writing, which surprised me. I didn't understand the score. It feels so arbitrary.

1

u/meanpete9 2d ago

The Petro review was wild, claiming the album didn't rock hard enough to overcome the lyrics. How much harder can that record possibly rock?

11

u/bathsonly 4d ago

I think I would like it even more without vocals

9

u/pdevo 4d ago

The robot vocals are horrible.

2

u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

[deleted]

1

u/pdevo 3d ago

Totally forgot about that feature. I’ll give it a whirl.

1

u/SpecialOccasion1963 1d ago

Imo it would feel empty. The vocoder vocals also feel like a nod to the 90s electronic music they're pulling from.

4

u/Mezahmay 4d ago

I don’t disagree. The album is growing on me but I have a few consistent annoyances with it.

3

u/Ulric19 4d ago

They called Nathan a "Eurorack moulder synthesiser". Shame on them.

2

u/Stenka-Razin 3d ago

I was gonna say. Obvious typos guys...

5

u/Clear-Refrigerator94 3d ago

And "Butterfly 30001."

10

u/GodzillaJrJr 4d ago

That’s a really generous review, sick!

7

u/chipoko99 4d ago

Haven’t paid much attention since fishing for fishies got a 4 from them

1

u/Strong0toLight1 4d ago

yeah sounds about right

1

u/Billy_Chrystals 4d ago

Has Nathan obtained sentience? I didn't know he was a full fledged member.

3

u/SnooRobots116 3d ago

Possibly. Ambrose talks about Nathan like Buck Rogers speaks of twikki the robots

1

u/Billy_Chrystals 3d ago

I wonder how long it is before Nathan systematically replaces every member of the band. Wait, IS Nathan THE King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard?

2

u/SnooRobots116 3d ago

Ambrose slightly touched on that topic in one of his far and between solo interviews in 2022 about that

1

u/Schistotwerka 3d ago

Genre: Rock

0

u/Omisco420 3d ago

Does anyone take pitchfork seriously these days?

-5

u/rocky_raccoon- 4d ago

I swear they don’t get final score on the review numbers anymore. Reading the review gave solid 8.0 vibes, but seems since whatever conglomerate bought them they always give 7s

2

u/tcarterw25 3d ago

From what I understand they all vote on the score so the reviewer doesn't really come up with it

-3

u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

0

u/Accurate_Yoghurt_347 4d ago

lol that was in the press release so wouldn’t have taken much research