Album Review: "Oczy Mlody" by The Flaming Lips

THE FLAMING LIPS

*Oczy Mlody*

(Warner Bros)

For some Flaming Lips’ fans, this will forever be the album most associated with the band’s collaboration with pop star Miley Cyrus, the album they released after serving as her backup band for her tour the previous year. “We A Family,” the last track on their latest effort (the 14th album since 1986), features Cyrus on backing vocals on one of the most upbeat and optimistic tracks of the 12. Singer Wayne Coyne, vocals heavily distorted, sings amid chirpy synth effects and over-fuzzed beats, eventually letting Cyrus take over singing duties, ending with the repetitive and saccharine chorus “we a family...we a family.” The majority of the other tracks are slower tempo drug-themed explorations, arranged mostly with layers of electronic instrumentation (long gone are the days of the Lips’ analogue art punk sound). Some song titles are more interesting than the songs themselves--“Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes,” for example--with “How??” and “The Castle” representing the band’s best songwriting efforts. “One Night While Hunting for Faeries and Witches and Wizards to Kill” is interesting for its layered percussion (from taps to distorted kettle drums) backed by cricket and frog night noises. It’s an enchanting backdrop for Coyne’s languid vocal delivery as he weaves his psychedelic tale. But that’s balanced by the more pretentious “There Should Be Unicorns,” featuring guest vocalist Reggie Watts lecturing listeners in a pseudo-intellectual hippie persona: “...And we will be high and the love generator will be turned up to its maximum. And we’ll get higher, when at last, the sun comes up in the morning and we will collapse under the weight of the ancient earth...And it will be the end of the world and the beginning of a new love.” It’s a little much, but the Lips were never about moderation. 5/10 These "fearless freaks from Oklahoma City" will be in concert April 17, 2017, at the Riviera Theater in Chicago...Jill and I will be there.
Here's the link to the print version of this review, on page 24 of the February 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine.

Song Review: "The Clarity" by Sleep

SLEEP

“The Clarity”

(Southern Lord)

Sleep’s cult status as the trendsetter in stoner doom metal continues to grow despite the lack of new music released this millennium. That the band continues to actively tour (around guitarist Matt Pike’s High On Fire commitments) only contributes to rumors of potential new music or even a new album. For now, though, fans have “The Clarity.” Originally released digitally as part of the Adult Swim Singles program in 2014, the song still represents the only new track the band has released since 1998’s ill-fated “Dopesmoker” album, an album originally rejected from the band’s record label because it featured one epic 60-minute song (it became an instant genre classic once it did get released). The re-release of this single, slated for Feb. 10, will get the 12-inch, 180 gram vinyl treatment. The B side will feature the iconic spaceman artwork used by the band.

Staccato guitar notes herald the beginning of the nearly 10-minute track, eventually giving way to a repetitive, two-note power chord. But therein lies the song’s genius and appeal: the power chord is elemental, and combined with the bass and drums--heavy on the snare and crash cymbals-- leads to metal transcendence. Singer Al Cisneros doesn’t sing the lyrics about mind altering adventures, but rather chants them with cryptic and choppy word choice: “Toward the weed fields / to that which holds the worlds / walks the sinsemillian / refutes death / remains stoned constantly.” About halfway through, the trance is broken by a soaring guitar solo, only to dive back into the mid-tempo riffage and eventually come full circle to fuzzed-out guitar notes to let listeners down easily at the end. Although certainly different in its arrangement and sound, the track plays like a tighter version of “Dopesmoker” in other ways.

8/10
Link to Sleep concert review