Live Review: Goat, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Orb

What was always going to be a night of fuzzed out guitar kicked off suitably with Orb. The Melbourne trio's brand of Black Sabbath reminiscent stoner-rock was a welcome opening to the evening's proceedings. While droning and repetitive in form, the trio have an undeniable power to their song writing, which retains enough pop sensibility to still be a lot of fun under the hazey fuzz.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have proven their cred time and time again. Album after album and gig after gig they remain one of Australia's most vital bands, yet somehow they manage to one-up themselves. In a set driven by new material from their forthcoming eighth album, the band shredded their way through some of their heaviest material to date. Seamlessly melding songs both old and new, King Gizz treated a packed out Metro to a near-career spanning setlist, including a smattering of chilled pastoral psych-pop tunes from their terrific recently released Paper Mache Dream Balloon, though the undeniable highlight was the twenty-odd minute I'm In Your Mind Fuzz suite, which exemplifies the group's playful and dedicated mix on psychedelic rock.

From the first moment into their set, Goat made it seem like they were the only band in existence. Not just because their sound was so immediate and powerful, but because the seven-piece create their own world with their music. Practically ritualistic in their performance, the masked Swedes had the crowd in frenzied dancing from the first moment. Playing an experimental fusion of '70s style psych-rock with flourishes of afrobeat and acid-rock driven by the hauntingly cloaked dual vocalists, Goat are irrefutably a unique voice in the modern musical landscape. The anonymity of each member, hidden behind elaborate masks and paints, only furthers the shamanistic qualities of the brilliant performance.