Wow a new Lips release! More fun in the sun! The following info is stolen from Flaming Lips website, making this an easy review for me. MY review 'I love the tracks!' 'I wish the Lips would release an album ever year and have ther own holiday.' Thus the stolen content . . .
'Fight Test' is one of the more interesting songs from the Lips latest album, if only for the fact that it represents the apotheosis of the stylistic straddling of the country vibe from the Okie Noodling soundtrack and the futuristic electronic pop that pervades the album as a whole. But that is by no means all that the Lips deliver with this one, as Wayne espouses a philosophical parable about knowing when not to roll over. That is, when someone nicks your bird, you should 'stand up and be a man', fighting for what's yours and what you believe in, even if not in a physical sense. At it's core, the song is rousing country rock, but this sounds like no country you will have heard before, featuring as it does robot voices, wild crowd sounds, and the electronic treatment that is characteristic of the whole album from which the song is taken.
Kicking off the extra goodies on this EP is the band's now infamous cover of Kylie Minogue's hit 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. This version of the song was recorded in a radio session for KEXP, but is still the same cymbal crashing, mirror ball glittering version that they recently took to playing onstage. The Lips breathe into the song a feeling of near reverence, playing it as a devotional ballad with just a little grandeur. The Scott Hardkiss remix of 'Do You Realize??' is a fairly spaced out affair built around a hugely treated version of Wayne's vocal, augmented by various electronic drums and squelches. Alternating between thoroughly chilled out and relatively clubbed up (although admittedly still at a pretty low tempo), it's not exactly the Aphex Twin but does provide a different take on the song.
'The Golden Age' sees the Lips provide their own rendition of the Beck tune that they would always arrive on during their tour as his backing band. The song is played straight ahead, with Wayne providing vocals in lieu of Mr Hansen. The Lips ably capture the warm heart of the song, with their playing emphasising the yearning quality therein. The band's version of Radiohead's 'Knives Out' is similarly straight ahead, yet still Lipsified, with a strident piano, rattling snare, wailing synth, and (of course) Wayne's plaintive warble. The extended instrumental break leading to the end of the song is where the Lips take it fully to their own territory, leaving one with a funny feeling that it could almost have been theirs in the first place.
The two new songs here, 'The Strange Design Of Conscience' and 'Thank You Jack White (For The Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)' show the Lips working in radically different modes that gave rise to the hybrid stylistic bent of the Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots album. 'Thank You Jack White' is a straight ahead country confessional in the style of Johnny Cash et al. Straightforward though the music may be, with pedal steel and jangling guitar, it just happens to be the tale of how Jack White (of White Stripes fame, and who Wayne didn't really know too well at the time) gave Wayne a fiber-optic Jesus backstage at one of the Beck shows, thus thoroughly cheering up the Lips. This particular fiber-optic Jesus was so shiny and bright that Wayne, 'Couldn't help believing it would save me.' Suffice to say, the song goes on to espouse the positive good time feeling that comes from hanging around the White Stripes.
On the other hand, 'The Strange Design Of Conscience' is a philosophical electronic piece musing on human foibles, such as conscience, forgiveness and desire. The music sees the Lips in their most electronic mode, with skittering synth melodies and gently pulsing drum machines. Possibly a sign of things to come, or possibly a mere diversion, the song beautifully builds to a false crescendo before.
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