Indie band "At War' with themselves

According to the traditional pop music formula, the Flaming Lips are an aberration. The band formed in 1983 but only achieved mainstream success in the new millennium. The Lips have released 10 albums in that time, some of which include the most bizarre and un-radio friendly pieces of music ever put to tape. (The four-CD album Zaireeka is intended to be played on four separate players at once.) Now that respectability and moderate commercial success are theirs, the Lips attempt to capitalize on it with the long awaited At War With the Mystics. After a two decade long career of redefining what is and is not pop music, the Lips may have eventually run out of weirdness.\nAt War With the Mystics follows in the path of the two previous Flaming Lips' efforts in that the lyrics focus on and explore one or two concepts. The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots dealt with death, acceptance, the creation of real or manufactured emotion and, um, murderous machines. Mystics takes the misstep of moving away from the personal melancholia the Lips succeed so well in and instead dives into the realms of politics. The titular "mystics" are those who blindly accept their beliefs as divine and free from criticism. Tracks like "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" and "The W.A.N.D." describe constant critics falling into the same paths of greed and corruption they blame those in power of having. But the more grounded the Lips get to this year's culture, the more the songs suffer. On the whole, the political songs are done in such a ham-fisted, un-Flaming Lips-like way that the sentiment comes across as cheesy. \nBy the way, almost all of the song titles on Mystics are incredibly stupid. They delve from sincerity to self-parody so much that the whole ordeal becomes über-self-parody, if such a thing exists. One track is actually titled "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life as Blazing Shield of Defiance and Optimism as Celestial Spear of Action)"\nAfter the first three relatively embarrassing songs, the album picks up with two strong atmospheric ballads. Perhaps it's because both songs abandon the trite political bent and instead focus on what the Lips have always been good describing: existential wonderment of the soul and mind. While the musical doodling seems more important than the song craft, remember, the Flaming Lips did win a Grammy for Rock Instrumental in 2002.\nAfter a pretty mediocre first half, Mystics picks up into a much more guitar-oriented, surprisingly angry sound. The lead single "The W.A.N.D." contains perhaps the Lips' hardest guitar riff in some time. The balance between post-punk craziness and more mainstream alternative rock is at its finest here. The constant experimentation with sound in the early songs seems unresolved by the end of the album.\nAt War With the Mystics is a hodge-podge of multiple musical formats. It's not as catchy as previous efforts, but that probably isn't the point. The Flaming Lips have gotten to the point in their career where their only goal is simply to be the fearless freaks.