FLAMING LIPS

The Flaming Lips: Michael Ivins (vocals, guitars, bass guitar); Steven Drozd (vocals, guitars, drums); Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitars). Recording information: Tarbox Road Studios, Cassadaga, New York. After becoming the darlings of alt-rock with their two consecutive neo-psychedelic epics, THE SOFT BULLETIN and YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS, the Flaming Lips reign in their sound without diminishing their ambitions on AT WAR WITH THE MYSTICS. They haven't thrown out their LSD-soaked playbook entirely--there are still some nods to MEDDLE-era Pink Floyd here and there--but on the whole the Lips have tightened up their sound and given it a groove injection. Much of the album revolves around simple, funky rhythm patterns, terse guitar lines, and R&B-tinged keyboards, putting the vibe closer to Prince-via-Beck or LCD Soundsystem than to Lips cohorts like Mercury Rev. The band has been quoted as saying that listening to Black Sabbath and getting into generating power as a small unit influenced them to scale down their sound for MYSTICS. True enough, there are some heavy guitar lines and a couple of moments of rocking out, but we're not talking Queens of the Stone Age here. Overall, MYSTICS balances the Lips' airy stoner psych-pop with funkier feelings, keeping things fresh without completely changing course.

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