I’m a big time Flaming Lips fan. They’ve traveled a lot of musical roads over the history of the band, but all of it has, at a minimum, intrigued me. Clouds Taste Metallic, The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots did more than just intrigue me - those albums obsessed me. They captured something special about these strange guys from Oklahoma. Something hard to put your finger on… which makes it all that much more special.

I’m excited to hear that The Lips are working on a new album, planned for an March 2006 release. At War With The Mystics is going to have much more rock guitar goodness, which is a good thing. It also sounds like the band was inspired by their work on the cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and Steven Drozd has done some further experimenting with heavy layering of harmony vocals.

Wayne Coyne also makes numerous references to a “Black Sabbath feel” in this article from Billboard. I think that’s probably a relative reference as opposed to an absolute one, but one can never quite tell where The Lips are going next.

That’s exactly why I love them.