At War With The Mystics

This album is brilliant. It's definitely not an album for everyone, but for someone who thinks outside the box, it's great!

It is established: The Flaming Lips cannot put out a bad album.

With some prodding, I'm inclined to believe At War With The Mystics is the culmination of experiments performed by an adventurous band. Several aspects of the album do feel tired, though, and even the best returning characteristics from The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots are starting to seem like shtick. The Flaming Lips are still capable of producing some shimmering trial-and-error highlights like "Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung", but that really only falls under the aforementioned qualifier because it features Steven Drozd taking over lead vocal duties. Expectations were very high for At War With The Mystics because of the band's already legendary status, but even more so as a result of its inborn pedigree as follow-up to two back-to-back genius albums. Separately, those are daunting obstacles to overcome; together, they're practically damning. Always "out there", The Flaming Lips can't be blamed for attempting to push the envelope. It's unfortunate, though, that At War With The Mystics chooses to push in too many -- and often completely wrong -- directions.

They have let us down, the Flaming Lips have. They used to seem so perfect and cunning, but now it's as though they've had enough with being the best. They're giving it up, shipping out another average CD. But average for the Flaming Lips means awful in the eyes of its loyal fans.