Flaming Lips play on strengths, fire up the sound in latest album
By Anthony Bromberg
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
abromberg@media.ucla.edu
Modern art is littered with tales of good and evil, stories about the fate of humankind and whether it can survive the trappings of the very modernity it created. The latest apocalyptic myth dreamed up by creative minds of the 21st Century involves a Japanese female musician saving you and I from deadly pink robots.
“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” is the title of the latest album, released July 17, by geek-rockers the Flaming Lips. The disc is the first traditional album from the group since 1999’s overly critically lauded “The Soft Bulletin,” and this is the group’s best music yet. In support of the Warner Brothers release the Lips played a short set and then signed freshly bought copies of “Yoshimi” at a crowded Amoeba Records, on the release date. The Lips will be joining the “Unlimited Sunshine Tour” with Cake and Modest Mouse this summer to further encourage record sales.
The Lips sound has evolved into a dense, spacey soundscape since the band burst onto the scene with the alt-rock hit “She Don’t Use Jelly,” you remember the next lyric, “she uuuses vaaaaaassoline.” Yes, besides the quirky instrumentation the other defining Lips characteristic is the even quirkier lyrics.
With songs in its repertoire about bugs, sub-atomic pieces, and Superman, the Lips has a funny way of approaching weird and obscure topics and making them apply to universal human relations. Conversely, the weak part of the group’s sound has been frontman Wayne Coyne’s undistinguished vocal. Coyne has a tendency to sound like the singers of other geek-rock bands like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, but with less success. He leaves the listener underwhelmed, tending not to rise above being a monotonous accompaniment to the far more interesting music.
On “Yoshimi” the Lips works out a formula that is perfectly to suited to their style and strong points. From the title it is clear that the band hasn’t abandoned its goofy lyrical edge, as the songs deliver on the themes of the title with the hero based on the real-life Yoshimi from the Japanese group the Boredoms (and who is listed as a supplementary musician on this record). Spinning a loosely lyrically connected concept piece of a world inhabited by robots and humans, Coyne uses broad surreal imagery to create a work that, as a whole, maintains a consistent otherworldly atmosphere while he zones in on more specific problems of human relations.
While the songwriting is a particularly effective brand of Lips shtick, the mood also allows Coyne’s voice to take a less prominent role. On “Yoshimi” the Lips incorporates harmonies, vocals that feel lower in the mix, and a couple of songs where the vocals are strange background noises, like “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2.”
The instrumentation also surpasses the success of “The Soft Bulletin,” with even denser arrangements and sounds. The bass is thicker and groovier than on past Lips efforts. The effects and spacey keyboard-type atmospherics are funkier and even more fun. The transitions and flow between songs, which includes cheering, produces a disc that feels like one crazy space odyssey, and is an enjoyable story.
The album may not change the courses of good and evil or man and machine. And even though it probably isn’t even the best album released so far this year, it is fun and may be worth a perusal just to see the giant pink robot on the cover.
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