Throughout their career, band members have come and gone, but currently The Flaming Lips consist of original members Wayne Coyne (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Michael Ivins (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), along with members Steven Drozd (drums, guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Kliph Scurlock (drums) and Derek Brown (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals). Each of these releases sound remarkably good for all their seemingly raw tossed off presentation.The Flaming Lips are an American neo-psychedelic band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States in 1983. So what else do you get in this box set? You get a fine sounding never-before-released two LP set live album ( Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles), a first-time-on-vinyl mini album containing alternate mixes, radio performances and such ( Providing Needles For Your Balloons) and an album of even more rarities ( The King Bug Laughs).
And that is how Clouds Taste Metallic goes, ending up with a couple of my all time favorite Flaming Lips songs, the ever charming Phil Spector-on-Acid joy of “Christmas At The Zoo” and the hopeful and rollicking album ender “Bad Days.” This before the almost thrash-punky epic “Kim’s Watermelon Gun” pits a banjo plucks against a driving wall-of-sound din of electric rock yet with vocals and harmonies floating neatly atop this carefully concocted beautiful mess. and a hand clap… and some outer space sounding feedback (“When You Smile”) … These are huge sounding kick drums, massive drum hits and bold, intentionally heavy handed playing through out.Īnd then you hear a bell…. Noisy guitars are pitched against acoustic guitars and big drum sounds - someone on a fan forum along the way called them “John Bonham cartoon drums” which is a good way of describing the sounds. And, they also sound harsher where intended! Skronky guitars never really sounded quite so skronky! Audiophile noise? Perhaps! But its not just the sense of skronk. The mixes sound more defined, rounder and less harsh where they need to be less harsh. But the important thing is how they sound and I’m convinced that it was very much a brand new mastering job done on this, especially the version of Clouds Taste Metallic it sounds noticeably better than the version included in the first Heady Nuggs box set retrospective (which contained all the Warner Brothers albums up through Yoshimi). The limited edition version of the set from the band’s website comes on lovely, perfectly pressed multi-color vinyl albums that are super quiet and perfectly centered. That evolution from the acid driven noise pop-punk the band had been brewing took a wholeheartedly conceptual turn beginning with Clouds Taste Metallic and that is what this box set is celebrating.
( Zaireeka from 1997 must be acknowledged, but that was mostly an experimental touchstone). That album set the stage for the wave of mind expanding, conceptually related albums the band issued around the turn of the new Millenium: The Soft Bulletin (1999), Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002) and At War With The Mystics (2005).
I was wrong and as it turns out this set is really thoughtfully pulled together both conceptually and in execution.įor those of you not in the know, Clouds Taste Metallic was the final album from first widely popular incarnation of The Flaming Lips that achieved mass success in the early 1990s. This is included in the fine, fascinating and sprawling five LP set Heady Nuggs 1994-1997.Įven as I was pre-ordering this deluxe edition set from the band’s website, I was a bit skeptical that a whole box set was necessary for this period of the band’s career. In this review I’ll address the question : is there such a thing as audiophile grade noise?īut I will acknowledge that the noisier parts of one of The Flaming Lips most important (and ultimately transitional) albums sound way way better and noisier and more skronky on the newest remasters (done by Bernie Grundman!) of their seminal 1995 release, Clouds Taste Metallic. Twitter Facebook Email Print LinkedIn Pinterest SMS WhatsApp
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