The Flaming Lips – At War With the Mystics (2006)

The Flaming Lips has a very curious career. Their first albums were really lo-fi and from today's perspective, I would never really listen to those early albums. But similarly, the latest albums by the band have been really obscure and they haven't really opened up to me at all. The Flaming Lips had a shortish period at the beginning of the 2000's when they made many great albums that were a bit more easily approachable, but still had that craziness that makes this band unique. At War With the Mystics is the last album of that period. This came out after Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which I would say is definitely the best album The Flaming Lips has ever released. At War With the Mystics required a bit of getting used to, but after all that effort, I think it's also a great album. It's a bit more experimental than its predecessor, but still very listenable.



It was after this album that I got to see The Flaming Lips live in Helsinki. Actually, it was quite some time after this album, but they hadn't released anything else either. I had heard that this band is really interesting live and that there are all kinds of costumes and strange things going on on stage, but nothing could still prepare me for what was going to happen. There were indeed many kinds of costumes on stage. I remember the Teletubby costumes the best. Also, the lead singer Wayne Coyne stage dived in a huge plastic hamster ball, there were amazing confetti cannons and the audience was filled with almost man-sized balloons. The selection of songs they played was also really great. I could recognise almost all of them. It occurred to me back then that, despite the great sounds on the albums and great songs, this band's absolutely biggest skill is in performing live.

The album starts with the strange song called The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song. The vocals are outright annoying when you first hear the song, but when you get familiar with the song, you see right through that and start enjoying the great hit quality of the song. The Sound of Failure has some amazing space sounds in it. As a composition it may not be that interesting, but those sounds are quite something. My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion shows the delicate dream pop sound of the band really well. This is what the band used to sound like and this is where you really hear the connection to Mercury Rev that Wayne Coyne has mentioned a couple of times. The Wizard Turns On... is the compulsory sound firework on the album that makes not that much sense as a song, but shows the full arsenal of amazing studio techniques. Mr. Ambulance Driver is one of my favourite Flaming Lips songs. It has a great calm groove and great melody. Makes me almost think about Wilco. There's something similar to those Sky Blue Sky songs in this one. If there's one song that's even better, it's Pompeii AM Götterdammerung. This song is just beautiful. The echoes and the pulsing bass line is just amazing.

you can probably guess from what I wrote about their live shows that The Flaming Lips also have amazing music videos. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song music video shows a crazy tale where three supermodel-like Asian women tape hamburgers into a guy who is then sent off to the streets where hungry and almost naked fat guys are running after him trying to get to the burgers. The next victim is covered with bagels and a bunch of police will start running after her. Then it's time to staple pieces of meat on a guy who will be faced by a werewolf outside.

The Flaming Lips used to be one of my favourite bands back in the early and mid-00's, but their newer albums haven't convinced me enough to get a revival for them. Maybe I should give them another chance and see if I could get the exceedingly strange new albums a bit better now.

Listen to the album on Spotify.