By Jon Roe
At this year’s South by Southwest festival, between performances with his band, Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne found a need to make an appearance in the streets of Austin rolling around in a giant inflatable ball. If you are unfamiliar with the Lips, the ball story does a fairly good job of summing up their own quirky brand of brilliance. At War With the Mystics is the Lips’ adequate follow up to 2002’s break out Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
With Yoshimi the Lips found the commercial success they had been missing throughout the ’90s, and At War With the Mystics takes the next logical step with a more accessible and mainstream effort. Though hardcore fans may complain that the Lips are selling out, the songs, such as “Mr. Ambulance Driver” and “The W.A.N.D.” are still as good as previous endeavours. However, At War fails in being as complete of an album as the Lips earlier efforts, such as Yoshimi or The Soft Bulletin.
At War With the Mystics finds the Flaming Lips in a different place than they were with the release of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and the maturation shows through in their sound. Though nowhere near as complete as their previous work, At War is still a good Lips album and worth a listen.
..Jon Roe