The Flaming Lips - King’s Mouth (Music And Songs) (Warner Bros, 2019)

The Flaming Lips
King’s Mouth (Music And Songs)
Warner Bros
2019

Rating: 8.5 triangle pants out of 10

If you would have told me going in that on their fifteenth full-length release, “King’s Mouth (Music And Songs),” the Flaming Lips would release a (typically oddball for them) concept album about a hero taking down an evil king baby, with narration by Mick Jones from the Clash/Big Audio Dynamite throughout, and it would be the best record they’ve released since their career high water marks of “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots”…well, here we are, and I’m just as shocked as you are.  Shocked that the narration and goofy story doesn’t annoy me, shocked that they have gone back to their sound from that perfect period of the early oughts, and more than anything, shocked that more people aren’t talking about this fantastic album.  Part of that might be because it’s not been released widely yet (there was limited release for Record Store Day, with full release is coming in July), but in this modern age of internets and streamery it’s not that hard to find.  Perhaps equally at play is fatigue for the band – maybe other folks are less willing to tolerate the silliness of Wayne Coyne and company in search of perfect psychedelic pop, but the Lip’s whole aesthetic still works on me.   I totally get that the band isn’t for everyone, but as an avowed non-lyric person, their particular brand of nonsensical fantasy is so tied in with the idea of incredibly catchy songs that it’s hard to imagine it not being this way.  I mean, and obviously I’m not the first to say this, all of this shit is just the continuation of the Beach Boys ethos in the “Pet Sounds” years or the Beatles during the heyday of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”…nothing is too weird if it sounds good and has a hook.

I know this whole record is tied in with some sort of art exhibit that Coyne created, but the true calling of “King’s Mouth” is to be the soundtrack of a fantastical cartoon…something along the lines of what Harry Nilsson did with “The Point,” just some beautiful, trippy animation that visually tells the story of this terrific album.