The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics

comes out today, but im not gonna get it tomorrow. has anyone else listened to it yet? i heard them preform "the yeah yeah yeah song" on letterman, and i wasnt very impressed...but i've always loved the flaming lips, so im hoping that the album is good.

 

I'm going to buy it tomorrow. I have the three singles and enjoy them a lot.

I hope it doesn't suck either. That would...suck.

 

I've had it for.... well... too long to say the least.

I'm listening to the last song right now, it's giving me chills. The first time I listened to it I was driving to a jam about an hour away, as I was leaving town the songs were intense and focused on the social aspects of life, as I faded into the countryside it moved into more spacey universal realms of thought... then when I started to come closer to another town, the politics of life came back into play on the album... until the final track, of which the intent (i'm presuming) is to take the listener to a place of preperation for the inevitable return of the pattern of everyday commonlife. As the song flowed on A box of chocolates in the shape of heart on my dashboard illuminated under the streetlights and reflected onto the windshield deadset in front of me... and continued to pulsate to the downbeat of the song. It was so beautiful I almost cried.

Yoshime Battles The Pink Robots is probably in my top 3 favorite albums of all times, so comparing AWWTM to that is only grounds for making the album less than it is.

It's an amazing album, like the work of the Lips usually is.

The artwork is probably some of the best Coyne has done.



oh, and for the record, I've heard bootlegs of the yeah yeah yeah song that sounded better than on Letterman, something about that stage, it really portrays a lot of bands energy as mundane. Don't reference that for the album at all.

Much love friends.

 

I'm a little disappointed. A little.

Musically, (composition-wise, musical talent, studio quality), this album is superb. It's like taking your ears on a thrill ride. I wouldn't expect anything more from the Flaming Lips. Lyrically...it's dull. I was expecting some crazy stuff from Wayne & Gang. Along with that, the songs don't really have much to give (there are a few, though). I think Soft Bulletin was a kind of pivotal point that the Lips hit, and now they can't pass it. From "Transmissions" to "Soft Bulletin", every song a had a great melody. I know they could make another classic if Wayne started singing like he used to (I'm talking squeaky, semi-off-tune, Clouds Taste Metallic style) and if the songs gave that same punch as they used to.

I'll have to listen to it a few more times in different environments

 

i bought it yesterday and listened to it last night. although i will have to relisten to it a few more times, i have already been dissappointed a little. Im trying my best not to compare it to other flaming lips albums, but everything that they have done since transmissions of the satillite heart has been brilliant. this one is just good, but not flaming lips good...

musically, there are still some great songs (except i wasnt much of a fan of the first two songs). But i'll have to agree with the lyrics being a dull...i prefer the flaming lips when they are singing about life and death, robots, and spiderbites. im not a fan of the political stuff

its good though, and im not completly dissappointed. just coulda been better =/

 

my second and third listens were a lot better. I think I jsut had to get used to it.

Favorite Tracks:

"Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung"
"It Overtakes Me" (despite the ridiculous lyrics)
"Vein of Stars"
"The W.A.N.D."
"Yeah Yeah Yeah Song"

 

what kind of music do the flaming lips play?

 

Experimental punk/rock/pop/electronic.

It's all very strange. But it's my favorite music in the world. Buy The Soft Bulletin or Clouds Taste Metallic, listen to them with headphones, and have an eargasm.

 

ya, the album has already grown on me.

there are only four songs that im really not fully fond of yet:

The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Free Radicals
Mr.Ambulance Driver
Haven't Got A Clue


The rest im very pleased with.

i dont hate thoughs songs, they just kind of bog down the whole album for me...i still listen to em

 

the lyrics for mr. ambulance driver, and pompeii am gotterdammerung are some of the best on the album. and my least favorite is free radicals. I just dont care for the prince falsetto. never have. never will.

but the album overall is great. it has awesome cover art, and the inner art is good too(not just blank). overall worth 12 bucks. Yoshimi was better, but thats like comparing hendrix to pink floyd. you dont do it in a crowd of fans without getting beat up.
*end bad analogy*

 

i didn't like it as much as their other cds on my very first listen, but it's for the same reason most people can't get into the flaming lips at all. sleepy_ashes, i love your story . i have one kind of like it...

i went to a bluegrass festival, and met this guy in passing when my friend and i were looking for a ride to my house, about ten miles away. we told him what we were doing and he offered to drive us, just because he was bored. on the way back he asked me to put in some music, so i put in AWWTM. we had all been up all night, on ecstasy, and the sun was coming up. it was turning into a gorgeous summer day. none of us talked the whole way back. i accidentally left my CD in his car, and i didn't see him again for months.

then at a rave, i was walking around in the parking lot, and this kid in a glittery and feathery neon mask runs out from the line and says "THE FLAMING LIPS! YOU!" and told me about how amazing that ride was, and how he went home and bought every single lips album and they're his new favorite band, and he couldn't thank me enough for playing that cd, because it changed his life. the moral is, some people hate the lips, some people like them, but some people just worship them. and their music isn't something you can appreciate playing in the background or one song at a time. every cd is it's own complete experience. when you're listening to it, you really can't be doing anything else or you're missing out.

i kind of miss the scratchy, whimsical sounding wayne from Clouds, but i don't think there is such a thing as "better" with the flaming lips, and i love how much he experiments here. and you know that wayne puts painstaking thought and love into every note and word, so the lyrics that seem silly or stupid at first will eventually reveal their deeper meaning, and then you'll feel silly and stupid for not getting it at first.

god, i miss that cd... it was burned, and then my computer died. i'll have to buy it...


[/rant by biggest lips geek on the forums]