Listening Post: At War With The Mystics

Today's review from The Falming Lips in The Japan Times:

LISTENING POST

RECORDED

The Flaming Lips "At War With the Mystics"

By PATRICK MCCOY

Forget the supposed return to "rock" -- Wayne Coyne and his merry pranksters of indie-dom are as inscrutable as ever on "At War With the Mystics," the Oklahoma-based band's first album in four years. Although they've abandoned the concept-album approach that colored their previous releases, 1999's breakthrough album "The Soft Bulletin" and their biggest-seller "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (2002), the Lips still take on many of the Big Themes explored on those two albums.

The Flaming Lips are known for their extravagant production values and in this respect, "At War With the Mystics" doesn't disappoint. They play around with a variety of sounds, creating murky, spacey, goofy noises and glitches, except for "The W.A.N.D.", which is more primal, driven by a heavy guitar riff worthy of The Stooges. Lead singer Coyne obviously had a good time stretching his vocal range, especially when he hits the Prince-like highs on "Free Radicals."

Interesting and enjoyable for sure, but hardly the masterpiece that they have proven capable of producing in the past.

Comments

[phatrick]

thanks for the review. maybe I'll save my money and listen to Yoshimi again. Have you heard the new Calexico? I'm disappointed that they seem to be abandoning the Mexican/mariachi aspect of their sound. It's what I liked most about them and set them apart from other bands. Still, not a bad album, just not the direction I was hoping for.

[MC]

I don't know, I think "Mystics" is worth owning, its just that I still really love Yoshimi.

I do have the new Calexico (Garden Ruin) and want to write a review for The Times, either way I'll have a review sometime next week. But I agree with your assessment, they've gone the singer/songwriter route-which detracts from what makes them stand out, which was the Marachi-south of the border sound. In essence they have replaced all that orchestrration with a steel guitar, and I'm not sure Joey Burns is a good enough singer to have songs depend on his delivery.