The peak of a quirky career

If you've ever been to or even seen footage of a Flaming Lips show, then you know the meaning of a bad trip. From album to album, all the way back to 1986's Hear It Is to last year's At War With The Mystics, ringleader Wayne Coyne and his band have striven for a unique blend of surreal lyrical imagery and imminently listenable, albeit often cautious, sonic experimentation. The highlight of their 20-plus year career together is 1999's The Soft Bulletin, a record about everything from scientists to spider bites that could well be the trippiest record ever made by a bunch of guys who claim sobriety. \nAt least now they do, anyway. The Soft Bulletin limps out of the gate with "Race for the Prize," a quickie pop-ditty about two scientists trying to save the world from some horrible, unnamed disease. Right around the time the floor-shaking bass of "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" kicks in, though, it's obvious the path ahead is anything but linear. \nThe "Madman Across the Water" vibe that shimmers off most of "The Spark that Bled" showcases what the Lips do best, which is blend pop-rock sensibilities with psychedelic accents, leaving out the most egregious tendencies of each genre and highlighting what's best about both. Of course, I can't vouch for their live shows, which tend to verge on a kind of gratuitously creepy cuteness best reserved for Sanrio characters and "Katamari Damacy." \nCoyne's vocals are the most slowly acquired taste here, shifting from broken and cloying on "The Spiderbite Song" to warm and mostly in tune on the excellent "What Is the Light?" Much like George Harrison's songwriting, Coyne's vocal chords have found their proper place over the years, starting off shaky but emerging confident and fully formed in the depth of his middle age. \n"Waitin' for a Superman" was the radio hit here, but don't ask me how or why. "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate," with its 'parap-pap-pap' vocal intro and echo-drenched, lighter-waving chorus is the most accessible thing here, but the Lips could care less about accessibility, and that lack of concession to sell records is a big part of what makes The Soft Bulletin a great record. \nThe dreamy piano and synth instrumental "Sleeping on the Roof" would've been the perfect closing for Bulletin, but instead we're treated to rehashings of "Race for the Prize" and "Superman," both tracks whose incarnations earlier on the record were arguably more successful. Sometimes, though, the Lips are all about excess, and with the wealth of material on The Soft Bulletin, a little excess around the edges is OK.