Music Box | The Flaming Lips

Mike Newmark Assistant Arts Editor

The Flaming Lips
At War with
the Mystics
[Warner Brothers/Wea]
3.5 out of 5 stars

As esteemed as the Flaming Lips’ early-’90s run was, their legacy was gilded when, after a performance on “Beverly Hills 90210,” actor Ian Ziering exclaimed, “You know, I’ve never been a fan of alternative music, but these guys rocked the house!” Knowing what we know now about alternative rock—the umbrella term for anything influenced by Nirvana—it may be difficult to see what Ziering was getting at.

In 1993, alternative music still meant The Pixies, The Breeders and Love & Rockets—post-punk bands trying their hands at pop weirdness. What Ziering may have seen in The Flaming Lips was a band that referenced the music he knew well, but that jumbled it into something edgy, slightly unsafe, and strangely alluring.

If that’s your bag, The Flaming Lips is your band. Five CDs, one hit-and-run, and one spider bite later, nothing has really changed, at least in terms of their aesthetic approach. At War with the Mystics mimics the directness of 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, but the touchstones are more overtly classic rock: the cosmic psychadelia of Pink Floyd, the jazz-pop of Steely Dan, and a heavy dose of playful post-punk. More than any other Lips album, At War with the Mystics plays most strongly to young indie rock heads who appreciate classic rock not for nostalgic reasons but for its “cool” factor, and who wish to hear that music in a different light.

As joyous as At War with the Mystics often sounds, it begins on the wrong foot with “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,” an obvious dig at George W. Bush and his abuse of power regarding the war in Iraq. Their message is a noble one, but it’s placed in entirely the wrong context, diluted by a generic, upbeat guitar melody, beeping synthesizers and ludicrous Beach-Boys-inspired chants of “yayayaya.”

Thankfully, the album mostly avoids this kind of manic-pop agitprop with exquisite music, which is as diverse as it is catchy. The infectious retro-futurist track “Haven’t Got a Clue” beautifully blurs the boundaries between rock, dance and R&B, running acoustic guitar and lines of vocodered voices over a danceable beat to wonderful effect.

Subtle electronics push a number of songs into greatness, such as the treated vocals on the southern-fried rock ditty “The W.A.N.D.” and the sparkling keyboard drones that waft through “My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion.” The album ends with a quiet bang on “Goin’ On,” haunted by the fey, melancholic spirit of Freddy Mercury.

I was ready to give Mystics nearly a five-star rating when a funny thing happened: as soon as I stopped listening, I all but forgot everything I had just heard. Sure, I could remember the album’s general sound, but as for individual songs, I couldn’t grab hold of them from memory, and I hadn’t the foggiest idea why.

Little did I know that I would find my answer in that clumsy line of dialogue from “90210”: I have, in fact, heard this music before. I heard it when I listened to my dad’s old Queen and Steely Dan LPs; I heard it when I played Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in succession. The Flaming Lips do rock the house—albeit in the same way that Animal Collective rocks the house—but as for inspiring the house, you’re best off giving their breathtaking ’90s output one more spin.