The Flaming Lips

Well well well. It is nice to see cook take some initiative and do my job for me! Anyway. This is one very special review as it is of one of my personal favourite bands: The Flaming Lips. So straight to their not-so-recent album "At War with the Mystics".

This is, again, not an album for the faint hearted. If you buy the deluxe edition like I did, you end up with a bursting 16 songs (totalling about 1.2 hours). If you decide to be a cheap-ass and buy just the normal edition you end up with 3 less songs, which are namely "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Time Travel... Yes!" and the longer edition of "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song." Okay, so "Time Travel... Yes!" is not really a song at all, just a guy talking about how time travel exists in our own minds with some awesome trippy effects in the background. "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the other hand is a cover of Queen's original version and thus it is immediately awesome. "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song"... well its a longer and better version of the original one.

So the best song is most definitely "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song". It's really catchy and still retains the band's unique and sometimes weird sound. But of course, me being me, I'm not going to talk much about that song as although however catchy it is, it's still boring compared to the other songs. The most INTERESTING song is of course "Haven't got a clue". And as the name suggests, I've got no fucken idea what's going on with the key. It seems to be in one key but then SUDDENLY! It changes leaving you saying "W.T.F" over and over. On top of this, there are weird insertions of the band members coughing, burping etc. In one instance you can hear one of the members saying "I'll kill you" but the voice is sped up so it sounds incredibly cute.

And then there's "The Wizard Turns On..." Now this... I really have no idea what this is all about. There aren't any lyrics but this isn't what is weird. Lots of songs do this. It's just the fact that there isn't any real main melody/riff or anything. It's just, well, texture. Kinda like elevator music on lots and lots of crack and drunk at the same time. But it is still a brilliant piece of... texture.

Finally, there's "Pompeii AM Gotterdammerung". This song comes pretty darn close to beating "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song" to the best song of the album. It has this orgasmic harmonic progression that repeats almost over and over again but still it never gets old. The lyrics are un-deciferable as the band sings in falsetto (squeeee!). There really isn't much else to say about this brilliant song other than the interesting choice of instruments. There's an electronic organ, many synthesisers, a flute sound and also an extremely prominent bass line.

Buy this album! Even if it did come out in 1999, it would make a brilliant edition to your CD/iTunes library. Trust me. You will be listening to this whole album for years to come. Not one song on it is mediocre and all are overly awesome. :D

-Alex