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ooh, well now..
Their most recent album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a natural continuation of the Soft Bulletin - similarly wonderful songs, but more poppy and.. well I was going to say 'more upbeat' but that's not really true.. it sort of soars between happiness and sorrow a lot I guess.. and it has a story, which is brilliant.
To go through the rest of their career in reverse:
The main thing that will stand out when you first check out their pre-Soft Bulletin albums is the presence of loads of fuzzy electric guitars and general spacey indie-rock noise, which obviously I consider a good thing.. and the songs are just as fantastic and crazy and, er, generally they're really, really good.. loads of people reckon 'Clouds Taste Metallic' is their best record, period. And I can't really argue with that assessment - it was the first 'Lips album I bought, based entirely on the fact that it had a cool cover and a cool name.. their two earlier Warner Bros albums 'Transmissions from the Satellite Heart' and 'Hit to Death in the Future Head' are also absolute classics of spaced out psychedelic slacker-era noise-pop..
Prior to that, 'In a Priest-Driven Ambulance', recently reisssued with loads of bonus stuff as 'the Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg', is described by somebody or other as "the first truly great Flaiming Lips album" and is indeed amazing. It's definitely their darkest period - lots of songs about being fucked up on drugs and horrified by the state of the outside world and lots and lots of religious references, but still absolutely beautiful songs.. I love this particular album so much..!
All of their previous stuff is collected on 'Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid' and, well, the title says it all really. The quality is mixed, but you've got to give 'em a break since some of this stuff was recorded then they were still in school, and even their earliest recordings have some breathtakingly beautiful songs, even if they do have a tendency to spiral off occasionally into pointless noise-jams and drug humour.. basically the impression it gives is of a bunch of delinquent kids in the middle of nowhere fusing the noise and energy of punk rock with as much '60s style excess and weirdness and sci-fi references as they could come up with, with the intention of being the weirdest, scariest band in town .. and I reckon that's a pretty great impression. |
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