The Flaming Lips
At War With The Mystics (2006)

The first thing to note about At War With the Mystics, before we get into the music, are the song titles. The Flaming Lips always like to fuck about with people's expectations, they've been doing it their whole career. After getting hold of a copy of this album, I knew the songs titles, however brilliantly grandiose they are, would be giving no clues on what to expect. You can't really beat 'My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life As Blazing Shield Of Defiance And Optimism As Celestial Spear Of Action)' though, can you? Curiosity achieved. Spin the record.

All the desk-chair reviewers on Amazon, desperate for you to agree, will hark back to The Soft Bulletin and to Clouds Taste Metallic, they'll talk of the golden age and the best Flaming Lips recordings ever made. But none of this matters nor applies to people who haven't heard the band before. The relative accessibility of this album, whilst still maintaining undeniable Lips' style and flavour, is what makes it so great. It's also got much more meat on the bone than their previous album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, arguably the band's most commercially successful release to date.

It begins with 'Yeah Yeah Yeah Song', but as interesting a start as it is, 'Free Radicals' is where it kicks off for me. 'Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber)' to give it its full title, is The Flaming Lips breaking out Jack White's guitar sound and meaning it. Though the rockier edge at the start doesn't define the album, the Scissor Sisters/Prince-esque vocals will certainly grab some attention before 'The Sound of Failure' (using short titles now) and 'My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion' return to more familiar territory. For those used to a heavier sound, beware, it's rocky for the Lips, but that doesn't mean it's heavy metal or anything. But listen to those melodic sounds, ooh! Is that Pink Floyd?

At War.. is also one of those fine rare beasts in the music world, an album that is just as strong when it finishes as when it began. From the typical fare of 'Haven't Got a Clue', we're then treated to 'The W.A.N.D.', a choice track of Radio 1's Zane Lowe and a floating transcendent experience, full to the brim with strange samples, a simple yet catchy riff and layer upon layer of cool. 'Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung', a title I haven't even attempted to say out loud yet, is up next and chills things out a bit whilst clearly advertising itself to potential film soundtracks. And the album ends with 'Goin' On', a stark contrast to some of the earlier tracks, with the effects stripped away, it's a reflective and enjoyable ballad-of-sorts that ends the bands first album in 4 years. It feels like the credits rolling on a movie that will send you home happy, but perhaps not one you'll be talking about with the same reverence as you would its prequals.

Given time, perhaps the Flaming Lips fans who have never gotten over how much better it was in the old days will come to love this latest work, and so may many others who are listening in for the first time. It's a strange world they're living in, but the music coming out of it is as sweet as ever.


+ Review by Jay

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