There are Flaming Lips songs and albums I love with all my heart and Flaming Lips songs and records that I don't. The last album, Embryonic, didn't appeal to me at all. Previous one, At War With The Mystics, had two or three out-and-out winning songs. Yoshima and the Soft Bulletin are superb from start to finish. Wayne Coyne is interviewed in this month's Mojo and seems to be in the midst of some 50-something crisis but he always comes across as honest, a wide-eyed believer and a man who wants to keep doing something different. Which is good.
There's a new album, The Terror, out in April. Unlike Embryonic it's a concise nine song job, not a seventy-odd minute slog. If you pre-order it you get a bonus song as a download straight away- Sun Blows Up Today. Wayne has described the forthcoming lp as 'bleak and terrifying' but this bonus song sounds like the work of indie-punk chimpanzees on happy pills. Listen at Soundcloud. It's chuffing great. Apparently they performed it at the Superbowl (?) and gave it for use on a car advert(?).
Their 2006 song The W.A.N.D. was a George Bush baiting, Black Sabbath channeling, up, up and away thing of brilliance. Until this week I had never seen the video. Here it is.
I want to like the Flaming Lips, all the ingredients are there, but it never quite gels for me. I'm the same with the Super Furry Animals. That's a great riff though.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing of theirs that I've got is Zaireeka, never listened to it properly, but I just think it's one of the best ideas ever. I'm surprised no other bands have come out with their own versions.