Album Review - The Flaming Lips: At War With the Mystics

At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips

Released - April 4th, 2006
No one does weird quite as well as The Flaming Lips.  They've been grinding out indie-quirk for over two decades.  For a band from 1983, they have stayed more relevant and edgy than most bands releasing their first album today.  As a musician, The Flaming Lips are the epitome of evolving and pushing boundaries, both in their albums, and in live performance.    Their last album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, was released about 4 years ago.  A long time for a follow up album considering how successful Yoshimi was among fans and critics.  Well, the Lips are back, and At War With the Mystics gets back to the freaky-guitar-rock that made me love them back in the 90's.  ("She Don't Use Jelly" was one of my favorite songs back in the day.)  From the opening track, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", with intertwining, slightly discordant harmonies, and happy guitar strumming,  you know you are in for a treat.  This album can definitely be called a return to guitar rock, but along with the effect laden guitar, the ethereal orchestration from Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin is still present.  The lyrics are also more mature and insightful, wrapped in the guise of simple words.  Listing individual tracks on this album would almost defeat the purpose.  Like Yoshimi, this is most powerful to me as a complete work, not a group of songs with the single up front.  This is the best album The Flaming Lips have put out to date, and I would daresay might be even more commercially successful than Yoshimi.  Lets hope so.  I need a lot less of what's currently on the radio, and more beautifully weird in my life.
Rating: 9 of 10
Key Tracks:  "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", "Mr. Ambulance Driver"

Comments

[Term Papers]

I'm actually glad to see all this stuff, to see that this world offers creativity and ideas other than what my lonesome small town provides.

[Term papers]

Nice post. Keep it up.