CRUMBLING CASTLE KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

2017, Australian psych rock septet King Gizzard pulled off a daring feat of releasing five full-length albumsopener might be the pick of the bunch. Across nearly 11 minutes, the band’s three guitarists trade intricate riffs on top of complex polyrhythms that continue to build towards a dramatic half-time sludge coda. When guitar-playing frontman Stu Mackenzie spoke to TG recently, he described the prog-rock giant of a track as “the hardest song we’d ever made.” Stu is known for his rare, unconventional guitars, but his main tone heard here can be achieved with a single-coil Strat and his preferred Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp – just stick to the bridge pickup and drive the clean channel. For the outro, Stu has been known to use a Devi Ever Torn’s Peaker for all-out fuzz assault, which he combines with an Omicron Series Vibrato.