Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By The Flaming Lips, Warner Music Group 2020.
This is the first Flaming Lips album that I’ve heard in some time and it’s a wonderfully ethereal experience.
The tracks on American Head have been crafted as soundscapes that work independently but as they stack one upon the other they produce a united body of work that transports the listener on a journey through the space that exists within the mind.
American Head is the first album I’ve listened to since Oczy Mlody (2017) and while it contains all the classic elements of intricate melodies and musical dynamism we associate with the Lips this album seems dreamier than their earlier work, possibly because it is reflecting the period in which it was written and recorded.
Many musicians are commenting that the enforced absence from touring has given them extended time to work on their song writing.
It has also promoted introspection.
Not only are we spending much more time alone but for many of us we’re also delving into isolation projects and spending more time thinking about some of the larger issues of life.
It seems that this has certainly been the case for the Flaming Lips.
There’s a largeness to this album, an album about some of the big issues recorded on an epic scale with strings adding to the orchestral vibe that pervades the entire disc.
A couple of the tracks deal obliquely with the Black Lives Matter issues, particularly in Assassins Of youth and God And The Policeman.
Although the album is preoccupied with some of the fundamentally important questions of our existence there’s also reference to drug use scattered throughout the lyrical content.
Maybe it’s a fundamentally important part of their existence; a track like When We Die We’re High combines both elements.
In the tracks, Mother I’ve Taken LSD and You and Me Sellin’ Weed, spell it out in their respective titles but on other tracks like Brother Eye it is there in the lyrics.
The album is not without its humorous elements, it is not dire and not particularly deep, but it is engaging.
While there’s a cinematic quality to the music, that has often been present in Flaming Lips albums, it is heightened on American head.
