The Flaming Lips

Looking for something to lock your lips to?

Look just a bit past the Milky Way, take a right at the first red light, and somewhere in there you'll find The Flaming Lips' new album, at WAR with the Mystics.

Blowing right past pop culture's expectations, at WAR with the Mystics is the lime for your Corona, the match in place of the lighter, or the medium rare instead of the well done. The whole CD seems like half cooked ideas at first, but merely 45 seconds into songs you can't wait to start the whole album over again.

The first song on the album, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, started playing through my system, and was twice as annoying as the name (especially since that stomach cramping band actually called the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). But after just a minute of play, I was excited to be listening to this album and from this song on I promised myself (as I often do with new albums) that I would not skip through the songs.

I believe skipping through songs forces you to take the work as the artists didn't plan for. After you know an album by heart, it is more acceptable...but what if we had taken Tommy by The Who and just skipped around?

Now, The Flaming Lips are no The Who, but they're definitely Guess Who worthy (and they wrote American Woman...[feel free to stop reading if you really thought Lenny Krappitz wrote that song]).

My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion is one of my favorites off this album. The lyrics are great. They're by far some of the most symple, and easily read lyrics I've heard in a long time, but that's partially what made it so enjoyable. As with much of this CD.

You dont' have to wondering if you're getting it. You do. It's good music. It's bold. It's fresh. It's "mystical".

The Flaming Lips have taken music as it is on MTV, put it in an empty coffee can, waited for the chlorine to evaporate, added their touch of vanilla extract(or whatever makes music good...not popular. I imagine it would be something like vanilla), baked it for 7 hours at 450, and as if there had been a recipe all along, we have a great album packed with 12 powerful tracks.

I would recommend that no matter your taste in music that you illegally download some of this album. And if you are shocked, violated, or just freaked out by how good this sounds, think about doing ONE of two things:

1) Buying the album from your local music store. Supporting the band. Helping their record companies see their fans, know they're good, and call back for another album (and back the Lips' wallets too).

or...

2) Illegally download the ENTiRE album. Whatever. I don't care.

Enjoy whichever path you take.