Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics - Review

I was excited to buy the latest Flaming Lips
music (I'm almost exclusively buying my music online these days - my favorite site is Musicmatch - both for its prices and its diversity). Something about the previous release, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, really grabbed me and I wanted more. Given the reviews of War with the Mystics, I was sure that I would see it similar. After a few weeks of listening, I have to say it's not as magical as I hoped.
The Flaming Lips has always been a band that is pivoted on humor, which I think is great. But the more they've veered towards progressive-rock the harder it is to make this work. I was a big prog-rock fan for the longest time - listening to music made in the early 70's. As I became a musician as a teenager, I thought it'd be fun to write and play such music. But, alas other influences pulled me more towards jazz. At any rate, I've realized that playing truly progressive rock or the more specific and stilted prog-rock is more than just sci-fi synth sounds and fantastical titles. Here is a band trying to make a prog-rock album and failing to do so, unlike Radiohead's Hail to the Theif or Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which are progressive although the both bands would hate to be labeled that way. Yoshimi... was successful at combining both the Flaming Lips usual campiness with truly complex and beautiful music. That album also had more warmth partly due to the smooth bass sounds that appear to be missing on Mystics. They seem to have maintained an edginess on Yoshimi that, like the previously listed bands (Radiohead and Wilco), make it hard to pin the prog-rock label on - even though they deserve it.

Case in point, the title track on Yoshimi (tracks 3 and 4) and ripe with humor and ol'fashioned r'n'r rebellion that ties them to their "she don't use jelly" roots. In comparison on Mystics, tracks like "Free Radicals" builds up an all too-polished spoof of 90's Prince. It's hard to believe the track clocks in at only 3:40 since the simple gtr-riff gets old real quick. The vocals on the album are delivered in the same charming, thin, unassuming Coyne style that pulled our heartstring on "Waitin' for Superman" but somehow there's just too much being said in this album to get the same affect. I don't have the best ear, but the vocals on "Haven't Got a Clue" are simply not in tune. Don't get me wrong - I agree with the political message of the CD, but I was expecting more from the music.