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Greg Baugh
The Flaming Lips career spans over 20 years and
it that time they have made some rather radical and boundary
pushing music along with some electric live sets and also gave
the Futureheads their name (The band taken their name from The
Flaming Lips album Hit To Death In The Futurehead). They have
seen quite a few line up changes over the years, but now the
band consists of Michael Ivins, Steven Drozd and Wayne Coyne.
This, there 11th album, shows no sign of slowing
down when it comes to musical progression.
The album opens with the inanely catchy new
single “Yeah Yeah Yeah song” A song that is questioning
people’s integrity when they are in positions of power and
control. This track shows an immediacy not usually seen within
their albums; this trend follows through the album with a
couple of exceptions.
The next track, “Free Radicals” Is the weakest
track on the album. It sees Wayne flirting with falsetto
vocals, while musically it flaunts with minimalist Price style
Funk. Its not an awful track, the production sounds fantastic,
but in terms of a song it feels like it never really gets
going and doesn’t really come to a complete conclusion.
“The Sound Of Failure” Is one of the more
expansive tracks on the album, along with “It Overtakes Me”.
These tracks seem to break down into many other parts, usually
having very beautiful and reflective moments in them. During
“It Overtakes Me” the track finishes with acoustic guitars
playing, they have an almost flamenco feel to them. They
repeat and progress and create a very striking soundscape. On
the final part of “The Sound Of Failure” there is around a
minute and half of keyboard melodies and sound effects, these
create a haunting feeling.
Undoubtedly my favourite track on the album is
“Vein Of Stars”. This track focuses on the idea of death and
afterlife. “If there aint no Heaven/Maybe There aint no Hell”
It’s a beautiful and sweeping piece of music, the first time I
heard this piece It drove me to tears. Enough said.
Anyone who’s seen the film Wedding Crashes, or
the recent Lips DVD “Void” will already be familiar with “Mr
Ambulance Driver” The song tells the tale of a couple who have
been involved in a serious car accident, the narrator is the
male waiting for the ambulance to arrive while he is looking
after his girlfriend. Like many of their tracks this deals
with the idea of death “Mr Ambulance Driver/I’m right here
beside her/I’m not a real survivor” The track sounds like a
melancholic disco record due to its unyielding 4/4 beat, this
is one of the many highlights of the album.
By far the most explosive and in a way
terrifying track on the album is “Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung”
This track sounds like the end of the world is about 4 minutes
and 21 seconds away, and this is how it will sound, a
beautiful destruction. The bassline has been lifted straight
out of a Queens Of The Stoneage Record, the vocal are very low
in the mix but that’s add to the atmosphere of the track. The
track climaxes with quite a bright almost positive feeling
guitar melody. This feels like a complete juxtaposition to the
demonic bassline growling below.
This is an essential album for all Flaming Lips
fans, it is also a fantastic for people just getting into the
band due to the fact it’s by far the most accessible album.
This is, without a doubt, contender for album of the year.
Rating:
9/10
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