The pairing of members of Tame Impala and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard has produced music ever bit as egregiously ill conceived as one can imagine such a team-up would. And yet, I sort of liked this misguided mess of a record more than recent offerings from either of the two bands I just mentioned. Ill Times from GUM and Ambrose Kenny-Smith may be at least the easiest listen of anything Jay Watson (Tame Impala, Pond [Not the Sub Pop one]) and Ambrose Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard) have ever touched.
Ill Times, burdened with far, far too much harmonica for any record by white boys, lumbers around in search of a spark. However, some of this -- notably the airy "Marionette" -- pleases almost in spite of itself. Opener "Dud", in thrall to synths desperately out of date and vocals far too yearning, is moderately of a piece with certain Tame Impala songs, enough so as to pacify some listeners. Elsewhere, the title cut's atrocious boogie keyboards over stay their welcome instantly, while power ballad-ish "Fool for You" is so over-the-top that it's got a Darkness-like charm about it. "Emu Rock" imagines Scissor Sisters covering peak Leo Sayer, and how you respond to that description will say a lot about how receptive you may be to this album.
There's a certain accessible laziness here that will get Ill Times played on Sirius XMU, I think. And this is the sort of pairing that will likely sell out a venue and leave guys like me and my friends scratching our half-century-old heads as to how that transpired. Still, I can see the appeal of this, even if I only really genuinely liked very small portions of this record. God bless GUM and Ambrose Kenny-Smith for at least making something more listenable than anything their home bands have dropped lately. Now I'm off to never play this again.
Ill Times by GUM and Ambrose Kenny-Smith is out today via p(doom) records.
[Photo: Jamie Terry]