Flaming Lips let loose in Atlanta

The Flaming Lips are back and with gusto. Their new album, At War with the Mystics, makes for a very nice evolutionary step for the band. But don't worry. There's still more than enough of their classic style left to go around. In this latest offering, the Flaming Lips seem to be making an attempt to spread out from their usual sound, taking queues from the likes of power pop and just a hint of '70s rock.

The album opens with the clap-along popish stylings of the aptly named "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song." However, it's only a couple of tracks before they're back to their old tricks with the likes of "The Sound of Failure" and "Mr. Ambulance Driver," two tracks that would feel right at home on either The Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots with their haunting melodies and bittersweet lyrics.

One thing that definitely hasn't changed about the Flaming Lips is their tendency to write songs about concepts that are a little more meaty than the same old same old of "my girlfriend dumped me," "my boyfriend dumped me," and "gee, I really like dancing." The band careens from singing about the notion of untested virtue to contemplating the melancholy of being the one who lives through an accident that claimed someone else. They definitely offer a bit more intellectual faire than most other groups out there today.

Musically, the band is still as strong as ever, having fairly significantly expanded their repertoire of styles from their standard dream pop and haunting psychedelia to a more pop rock sound on many tracks. Instrumentally, they seem to be trying their hand at a slightly more acoustic feel with some songs while utilizing distortion in ways reminiscent of Jimmy Hendrix on others.

On the whole, the Flaming Lips have succeeded with At War with the Mystics. They have done some interesting things in the way of evolving their sound while still throwing plenty of red meat to their hardcore fans.

And what better way to promote such a triumph of an album than by coming to town and giving Atlanta a bit of a show? Certainly nothing that the Flaming Lips could think of because that's exactly what they went and did, appearing Wednesday, Sept.13 at The Tabernacle, alongside the underwhelming Deerhoof.

The show started pretty slowly. If their performance Wednesday is any indication, Deerhoof seems to be indie rock's answer to the jam band, playing long winded songs that may or may not go anywhere or do anything interesting. Though, in their defense, what they lacked in listenability, they more than made up for in spunk,with their extended, unrepentant rock-out sessions.

However, once the Flaming Lips took the stage, it was a whole new ball game. Confetti filled the air, beach ball sized balloons were released, and an overwhelming sense of general feel good vibrations permeated the old Baptist meeting house.

The song set was made up largely of songs off their new album with the second largest group being perennial crowd pleasers like "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," and the remainder being rounded off by a few older songs that acted as shout outs to the band's longtime fans who had been into them since way back when.

The show had, for no readily apparent reason other than to just be weird, the theme of Santa Claus versus the Martians. Several fans were even recruited to put on Santa Claus and Martian outfits and dance on opposing sides of the stage.

Even though it did not seem to have anything to do with anything, the choice of theme greatly contributed to the overall feeling of whimsy and goodwill that the band was obviously trying to put out.

Ultimately, the show was a rousing success, much like the album it celebrates. One would have been hard-pressed to have left that venue not feeling great about the world. And this, I do believe, was exactly what the Flaming Lips had in mind.