Album Review: American Head by The Flaming Lips

The band's more recent projects have seemed to retract deeper into an insular bubble. Madcap projects such as track-by-track tributes to classics by Pink Floyd and The Beatles , a song lasting 24 hours and an album (2017's Oczy Mlody) devoted to luridly whimsical cartoon psychedelia have made few overt attempts at appealing to anyone outside of The Flaming Lips camp. Having learned that pre-Heartbreaks Tom Petty was dispatched to Tulsa, Oklahoma to sharpen his act with early band Mudcrutch before taking on the music biz in LA at around the same early-70's point when Coyne's older brothers were peddling acid in the city, the Flaming Lips dreamed up another eyebrow-raising concept for American Head.

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On American Head, the Flaming Lips use their storytelling skills to their fullest, combining some of their purest moods and most beautiful melodies with some of their most overtly autobiographical songwriting. Drawn from Wayne Coyne's memories of growing up in early '70s Oklahoma with his freewheeling brothers and their biker friends -- as well as his imagined version of Mudcrutch, the precursor to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers that honed their chops in Tulsa around that time -- the album's concept is one of the band's richest in some time. At the time of American Head's release, the band compared it to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin, and it's true that the album's scope and depth of feeling put it on that level.

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Thirty years ago this month, the Flaming Lips released their first game-changing album: 1990's In a Priest Driven Ambulance. After spending the '80s trying to figure out if they wanted to be a prog Replacements or a punk Floyd, the Lips outfitted Priest with an interstellar noise-pop sound that nonetheless retained a distinctly Oklahoman flavor, complete with fairground noises, field recordings of crickets, and strange songs about Jesus. In a Priest Driven Ambulance was also the first installment in what would become a Lips tradition: releasing pace-setting albums at each turn of the decade.

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A return to pop sensibilities… The Flaming Lips are one of those psychedelic bands that manage to twist your brain while listening to them sober. Whether hazy, dreamy, glacial or chaotic, they are truly mesmerizing, opening doors into their universe where you are bound to get lost. The band struck gold several times throughout their career despite some drastic changes in sound.

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The Flaming Lips’ sixteenth studio album in just over 30 years finds bandleader Wayne Coyne both taking stock of his past and boldly going where no man has gone before—into deep space, that is. And with the space cowgirl herself, Kacey Musgraves, along for the ride, well, why not high tail it out of here? Coyne, who once openly accepted the ultimate end on “Do You Realize??” now seems wary of the road ahead. Faced with the prospect of long gone friends (“Will You Return/When You Come Down”) and dead dinosaurs (“Dinosaurs on the Mountain”), it seems Mother Earth has little left to offer.

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There is a rich and varied history of musicians trying to capture their personal vision of 'America' on record, attempting to reach beyond all its myriad connotations and contradictions and pin down its core essence. Don McLean's 'American Pie', The Grateful Dead's 'American Beauty', Johnny Cash's 'American Recordings', LCD Soundsystem's 'American Dream', The Offspring's 'Americana'… the list goes on and on. Inevitably these projects reveal far more about the inner life and thoughts of their creators than they ever do about the spirit of the nation itself.

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Wayne Coyne and The Flaming Lips‘ music has long been complex, often riddled with drug-induced experiences, or delving into emotional states. And it has rarely disappointed, for Coyne remains one of those rarest of charismatic individuals that can captivate, fascinate and hold attention for eternity if need be, his aura being compellingly magnetic. American Head is the latest addition to a mind-boggling catalogue stretching back almost 35 years, and it's apparently the first time they've created something that looks at themselves as being Americans rather than just beings from wherever.

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While the transformative nature of narcotics is a familiar - and often celebratory - theme on Flaming Lips records, 'American Head' is more concerned with the comedown. Rather fittingly, as they won't be slaying many festival crowds this summer, they've served up something more reflective and intimate for album number 16. Lyrically, it's Wayne Coyne's most personal and earnest yet.

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For better or worse, the Flaming Lips have never been a band who are likely to stay in one place for very long. After their late '90s/early '00s commercial peak, 2009's remarkable Embyronic paved the way for a scattershot decade that saw them taking their sound into some dark and fascinating new places, as well as doubling down on their cloying earnestness and disregard for notions of indie credibility. On their latest release, American Head, Wayne Coyne and the gang now seem to be moving away from both the electronic experimentation and the Miley Cyrus collabs for the time being, and they've recorded what might be the most straightforward set of songs in their career to date.

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I write this review just as I have just finished listening to American Head for the first time whilst reading the lyrics along with the music, and after doing so I do not want to do so again so I want to get this out while this album is still fresh in my memory. But, while I found it unenjoyable, someone did tell me recently that my opinions can be a bit extreme sometimes and I might want to consider other points of view sometimes. And, to be fair, I can see how this album could be of interest to some people, but definitely not me.

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