After furiously headbanging at a continuous tempo for the first four tracks of King Gizzard’s Nonagon Infinity, ‘Mr. Beat’ brings a much needed cool-down to the proceedings. Not that I don’t enjoy those four songs. When I heard the album for the first time, I was sure that I hadn’t heard music that propulsive and driving before. My face was constantly screwed up just from how nasty everything sounded. ‘Gamma Knife’ is fantastic, it’s 6/8 on top of 4/4 drumming – can’t get better. ‘People-Vultures’ is the same. But while those are more the soundtrack for a high-speed drive, ‘Mr. Beat’ is more the song for a casual stroll down the street.

‘Mr. Beat’ relies on the whole play on words in its title. You see, the track is 7/4 time, so in a way the band ‘missed a beat’ when performing the track. Pretty clever. I do really like the song for just how it sounds though. A lot of delicate chords played, the bass is really upfront but playing some really nice melodies that mirror the vocals. Those organ breaks that come in are quite nice too. Funnily, those organ breaks are replaced by Stu Mackenzie playing the flute when they play this one live. But overall, the song has a very light feel to it – like I’m gently ascending into a sunny sky on a cloud. That’s just what I imagine, okay? The lyrics I haven’t put that much thought about because I think the music sounds so great already, though I think it’s just another case where the words are meant to fit around the music rather than having any significant purpose. That doesn’t stop it from being worthy of your time.

I should probably catch up with King Gizzard’s discography. Completely went head over heels for Nonagon in 2017, but I could never keep up with the rest of their stuff because they release one album after the other so quickly. I believe the last one I listened to in full was Infest the Rats’ Nest from 2019. Since then, they’ve released three more albums. It never ends with those guys.