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At War with the Mystics is the eleventh studio album by American rock band the Flaming Lips, released on April 3, 2006 by Warner Bros. Records.
The album is more guitar-driven and features more politically themed lyrics than the band's previous two albums The Soft Bulletin (1999) and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002).
At War with the Mystics won a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and was also nominated for Best Alternative Album.
Since 1999's The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips have issued an album once every three or four years -- roughly once per presidential term, making At War with the Mystics the second album they've made during George W. Bush's presidency. While Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' themes of seizing the moment and accepting mortality could easily be read as a reaction to 9/11, At War with the Mystics is a more overtly timely album for the mid-to-late 2000s, dealing with the motivation behind the war in Iraq and Bush's presidency.
By grappling with heavy subjects like these, it could seem like the Flaming Lips are taking their role as one of America's most prominent and beloved alternative rock bands too seriously, but Mystics' light touch shows that they can still be important without being self-important. In fact, the album's most pointed tracks are the most playful.
As they did on Yoshimi's "Fight Test," the Lips couch their aggression in bouncy melodies and playful production tricks. With its robotic doo wop vocals and strummy acoustic guitars, "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" -- which asks its listeners if they could do any better if they were handed all the power in the world -- sounds oddly like a Paul Simon song updated for the 21st (or maybe even 22nd) century.
"Free Radicals," which sounds like Prince via Beck with a dash of Daft Punk, and "Haven't Got a Clue," which boasts the refrain "Every time you state your case, the more I want to punch your face," get their points across emphatically -- almost too emphatically, actually, for as catchy as these songs are, they don't really expand on their thoughts or sounds much. However, the middle section of At War with the Mystics is expansive and intimate at the same time, like many of the Flaming Lips' best moments have been.
"My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion" and "Vein of Stars" play like updates of The Soft Bulletin's effortless, weightless beauty, and "The Sound of Failure" is a reminder that it's OK to be sad sometimes (while getting in digs at the teen pop platitudes of Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani) set to a gorgeous backdrop of soft rock flutes and guitars and twittering electronics.
This stretch of songs plays almost like a suite, which ties right in with At War with the Mystics' prog rock leanings. Pink Floyd is a major influence on the entire album: "The Wizard Turns On..." is a spacey, late-night instrumental that could easily be synched to The Wizard of Oz, while "Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung" also taps into Floyd's elaborate, epic power.
These trippy moments make At War with the Mystics the most psychedelic and least immediate album the Flaming Lips have done in a long, long time, and the way that Mystics bounces back and forth between its ethereal and zany moments gives it a disjointed, uneven feel that makes the album a shade less satisfying than either Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin.
Still, as standout tracks like "Mr. Ambulance Driver" and "Goin' On" show, the band is still fighting the good fight and confronting the bad things in life with hope, optimism, and just the right amount of (magical) realism.
Track listing
1. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power) - 4:51
2. Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber) - 3:39
3. The Sound of Failure / It's Dark... Is It Always This Dark? - 7:18
4. My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life as Blazing Shield of Defiance and Optimism as Celestial Spear of Action) - 4:48
5. Vein of Stars - 4:15
6. The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins - 3:41
7. It Overtakes Me / The Stars Are So Big... I Am So Small... Do I Stand a Chance? - 6:50
8. Mr. Ambulance Driver - 4:21
9. Haven't Got a Clue - 3:23
10. The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat) - 3:44
11. Pompeii am Götterdämmerung - 4:22
12. Goin' On - 3:39
iTunes exclusive bonus tracks
13. Bohemian Rhapsody (This track originally appeared on Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen) - 6:36
14. The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness (Also appears as the final track on the Japanese import version) - 4:47
15. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (Long version) - 5:22
16. Time Travel...YES!! (Non-album track, featuring Steven Michael Burns) - 3:21
All tracks are written by The Flaming Lips.
The Flaming Lips
- Wayne Coyne – vocals, guitars, keyboards, mixing, production
- Steven Drozd – guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, vocals, mixing, production
- Michael Ivins – bass, keyboards, backing vocals, mixing, production, additional engineering
- Kliph Scurlock – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
- Scott Booker – production
- Dave Fridmann – additional songwriting, production, mixing, programming, engineering, mastering
- Greg Kurstin – additional songwriting, production, backing vocals and instruments on "Haven't Got a Clue"
Notes
Released: April 3, 2006
Recorded: June 2004 – January 2006 Studio Tarbox Road Studios, Cassadaga, New York
Genre: Psychedelic rock, neo-psychedelia, space rock
Length: 74:59
Label - Warner Bros.
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