THE FLAMING LIPS AND YEAH YEAH YEAHS

MISSING LINKS

New albums from the Flaming Lips and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs 

by Matt Ashare |  
Posted April 17, 2013

One never really wants to be tagged as that person. I'm guessing the type may be somewhat familiar. He or she has an unwitting knack — an innate, perhaps genetic predisposition — for raining on a particular kind of parade. It usually goes something like this: an artist you've developed a genuine fondness for releases an eagerly anticipated new album — an album you're enthusiastic about being enthusiastic about. And this person, with nothing approaching outright malice, with nonchalant confidence and an annoyingly authoritative tone, reminds you that the album in question unquestionably fails to live up to the greatness you've come to expect from the artist or band. You know it's probably true. But that doesn't stop you from wanting to want to feel otherwise, if only for a fleeting moment.
    I've been on both sides of that equation. When I was young and dumb, I had what I've come to understand was an annoying penchant for pronouncing certain albums lame on arrival, or LOA, usually on the basis that the artist or band had sold out, as if I possessed a uniquely keen understanding of the machinations of capitalism. Although my methodology was almost certainly suspect, my conclusions were often on target, a fact that became exquisitely frustrating when I was on the receiving end of the same sort of flawed, yet hard to refute logic.
    I'm sensing that there are a number of Justin Timberlake fans who have been feeling that way since his new "The 20/20 Experience" dropped a month ago. (Dude, that's just what happens when you become the king of pop: the second thriller is just never quite as thrilling as the first.) But, as someone who doesn't have a lot invested in the relative merits of the former N'Sync sensation, I've been focusing my energies elsewhere, specifically on the release this week of new albums by two bands I've got a soft spot for: Oklahoma City's fabulous Flaming Lips, and NYC's alluring Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
    Both groups emerged, a decade apart, from different sectors of the garage-punk underground and scored unwitting hits with idiosyncratic singles: the Lips in 1993 with the playfully skewed rocker "She Don't Use Jelly": the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in ’04 with the crisp yearning of "Maps." And, they've both had the luxury of being able to rely on the strength and intensity of their live shows as they've navigated the fringes of the music industry, networking with peers who share some of their sonic predilections. Also, each is anchored by fairly singular, uniquely provocative singers — Wayne Coyne for the Lips; Karen O for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
    And, that's pretty much where the parallels end. The Lips are accidental alt-rockers with a colorful history of brash left turns. After flirting with the mainstream notoriety that came in the wake of "She Don't Use Jelly," the band embarked on a series of parking lot and boombox experiments — concert-like happenings that found Coyne and drummer-turned-multi-instrumentalist Stephen Drozd delving into the realm of musique concréte found sounds and electronic manipulations as the de-facto conductors of volunteer orchestras outfitted with cassette tape players. The "experiments" culminated, in 1997, with the release of one of the strangest major label albums of the ’90s: the four-CD "Zaireeka," a set of discs meant to be played simultaneously in order for the complete songs to be heard. In other words, they got Warner Bros, to release an album that not only couldn't be played on the radio, but that even most fans would have difficulty listening to.
    In April of last year, in honor of "National Record Store Day," Coyne and Drozd once again confounded expectations by convincing Warner Bros. to release a side-project album of sorts, credited to and titled "The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends." The disc featured a dozen-and-a-half guest artists, ranging from Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and My Morning Jacket's Jim James, to Yoko Ono, Nick Cave, Ke$ha, and Biz Markie, collaborating with the what remained of the original Lips (essentially, Coyne and Drozd). And, that was essentially a follow-up to another out-there project orchestrated by team Coyne/Drozd, the 2009 internet-only album "The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing the Dark Side of the Moon," a song-by-song reworking of the Pink Floyd classic that also had the Warner Bros. stamp of approval.
    The more simply titled new Flaming Lips album "The Terrors" — the Lips' first proper studio release since 2009's expansive, double-disc "Embryonic," which happened to feature a cameo by Karen O — was reportedly tracked while the band were working on the "Heady Fwends" project. And, according to Coyne's account, it mostly came together in "completely self-indulgent" late-night sessions. As if that weren't ominous enough, Coyne concedes, in an official Warner Bros. press release for the album, that "'The Terror' is NOT fun. . ."
    What "The Terror" appears to be is an ambitious, if admittedly indulgent, long-form rumination on the nature of love and life, which is surely fine grist for the poet's mill. But Coyne was apparently more interested in reveling with Drozd in the sonic essence of existential dread, then in delineating those feelings in words. And, so, the album largely eschews typical rock instrumentation — as well as conceits like verses, choruses, and, in one case, chord changes — in favor of dark organ tones, eerie synth shadings, looped rhythm tracks, and an occasional cacophonous burst of noise or feedback. So, no, it isn't really much fun, per se, although it does have a certain gravitas, which is a nice way of saying that it feels like an important piece of work. And, while it's definitely not the least accessible Flaming Lips album — that honor almost certainly goes to "Zaireeka" — it's far from easy listening.
    Something resembling a recognizable backbeat helps ground the disc's opening track, the somber yet enervating "Look. . . The Sun Is Rising," which features a scraping, atonal guitar riff and echo-laden, open-ended observations like "Love is always something/Something you should fear." More ambient, ethereal textures take over from there, as one song segues seamlessly into the next, forming a chaotic tapestry that's desperately in need of a hook to hang on. Which, I suppose, is sort of the point of this particular exercise. The Flaming Lips have, for some time now, been a band on a journey that hardly ever fails to be interesting, even if it's not always entertaining in the usual sense. They've earned the right to explore. And, for those of us who count ourselves as devotees, it always been worth hanging on in the hopes that from time to time they will land in happier, more melodious places.
    Unlike the conceptually confident Lips, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs still aren't really sure what kind of band they want to be when they grow up. "Maps" proved that they've got the goods to thrive as an art-damaged, post-Millennial answer to the new-wave moves of early Blondie, with Karen O slipping easily into the role of the strong, sexy post-punk chanteuse a la Debra Harry. But, O's a darker creature than the bleached-out glam grrrl Harry was happy to play in Blondie: indeed, "Gold Lion," the angular, guitar-driven single that emerged from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' second album, 2007's   "Show Your Bones," found her slipping seductively over to the goth side of the tracks. At the same time, the band have never been entirely willing to relinquish their grasp on their gritty garage-rock roots.
    There may be a middle ground, where all three of those aspects of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would coalesce into something coherent. But, they haven't quite found it on the new "Mosquito." The disc opens on a note that's promising enough, as an edgy O croons lines like "Falling for a guy/Fell down from the sky" with an air of torchy allure against the percolating groove of "Sacrilege." And, as Nick Zinner's guitar darts around the vocal, she drives herself soulfully breathless with the repeated chorus of "It's sacrilege." It's a tune that sorta splits the difference between the straightforward romance of "Maps" and the shadowy affect of "Gold Lion," which is not a bad plan. But, there isn't much in the way of followthrough. Instead, the band try their hand at some high-concept with "Subway," a skeletal mood piece set to the rhythm of what sounds like a creeping underground train; they go for cheesy tribalism with the title track, a novelty number replete with buzzing guitars that finds O warning "I'll suck your blood/I'll suck your blood/I'll suck your blood/I'll suck your blood"; and they have some silly fun with the raucous sci-fi schlocker "Area 52," a three-minute throwaway that's not half as much fun as sneered lyrics like "Take me as your prisoner" might suggest.
    There are other high points on "Mosquito," including a hip-pop collaboration with rapper Kool Keith in his Dr. Octagon guise called "Buried Alive," a deconstructed dance number that pushes O's cooing voice in surprisingly directions ("These Paths"), and an eerie goth-rocker titled "Slave." So, at the risk of being that person yet again, I'll just say that "Mosquito" is good enough for right now. But one senses that Karen O and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are capable of better.