At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips

Hopeful Pessimism? Jaded optimism? The Flaming Lips' chaotically good follow up to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is ambiguously political. The satire and sarcasm is deep enough to be thought provoking, but light enough to be fun. This collection is not as conceptually or melodically united as Yoshimi but offers more interesting layers. The Lips mix vintage guitars on top of techno beats, and ambient sounds capes. They manage to employ every cheesy 60's and 70's effect to add credence and credability to their music. Even the talk box, which was long since destroyed by Peter Frampton is back, and relevant. At War with the Mystics will guitar geeks giggity glaven. Of course, there's too many synthesizers, and funky beats to call it a guitar album.

Like many cds prepared for the digital age, At War with the Mystics is front loaded with catchy tunes ready to be fed to a digital boom box. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)and Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber, and The Sound Of Failure / It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark?? are tangled balls of fishing hooks waiting to grab every ear.

The transition from focused song craft into and out of spacey, flowing arrangements is particularly interesting. After the Yoshimi sound alike "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion", the Lips explore space with languid arrangements and clever sonic juxtapositions. The album transitions back into structure with Mr. Ambulance Driver, a with a disco air, and shades of canadian breakbeat house. The remaining songs maintain the Lips' vague imagistic political criticism.

Rating:3.75/5
Top Track: Mr. Ambulance Driver
Reason to Buy:It's t9ime for an interstellar freak out
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: Politically charged recreational drug use does not amuse you.