Warner Bros., 2006
Widely revered three-piece The Flaming Lips brings At War With the Mystics to the table nearly four years after the release of the critically acclaimed Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, expounding on the psychedelia-tinged textures that have helped to define the group's on 1999's The Soft Bulletin and 2001's Yoshimi. While retaining some very obvious similarities with its predecessors, At War With the Mystics manages to sound fresh in most of the important ways.
The album's opening track, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" really highlights some of the album's key points -- At War With the Mystics is densely packed with fuzzy textures and, quite successfully, feels noisy and cluttered; it must be noted that such is not necessarily a negative attribute, especially in this case. Sometimes At War With the Mystics seems like it's brimming with textures and harmonies, and, indeed, that seems to have been the goal of The Flaming Lips, for part of the album, at least. Luckily for listeners, At War With the Mystics isn't wholely noise-ridden; it allows for mild breaks of sound, successfully avoiding the trappings that lead to an overwhelming sound.
Of course, At War With the Mystics is no perfect album, nor is it close -- not that it pretends to be. One notable instance of a faltering is "Free Radicals," which, despite its best efforts, never manages to really mesh with either itself or the album as a whole. In fact, several of the tracks feel disconnected and almost forced, surprisingly.
However, The Flaming Lips manage a number of outstanding tracks across At War With the Mystics -- "Mr. Ambulance Driver," initially released in July, 2005 (albeit it was a different mix) for the film Wedding Crashers, is a serene experience, aided strongly by snippets of sound and the use of a siren as a thematic focal point in a prototypical 21st century Flaming Lips style. Also notable is "Goin' On," a piano-led piece that wraps up the album in an ultimately relaxed manner.
At War With the Mystics is certainly not the strongest album from The Flaming Lips in recent memory, but it is, without a doubt, an album of indisputable quality, and is likely to remain memorable for a time yet.