The Flaming Lips sure have a way of staying in the spotlight for far longer than they've really earned. If you've been paying attention to all their recent activities, would you believe that their last new album came in 2002? Yes, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is really that old. That was the year I first saw the Lips live, and the album had already been out for months by that point. They've stuck around due to their EPs and soundtrack contributions (there really isn't a more perfect band to contribute original music to the Spongebob Squarepants movie... just try to imagine anybody else even playing a song called "Spongebob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy," let alone appearing in the video dressed alternately as pirates, a ham, and a giant wedge of cheese), and now they're finally coming out with new music.
Here is the newly released video for their newly released single, "Mr. Ambulance Driver," from their forthcoming album, At War with the Mystics, which should be out early in 2006. It should also be noted that the song was also on the soundtrack to The Wedding Crashers, but is still being advertised on the Lips' official site as being from their new album.
Now first of all, a band releasing a single six months or more before an album's release is just plain teasing, especially when it'll have been four years since their last album, and when their last two albums have been ridiculously amazing, and even more so when the band is easily the most unique and other worldly in the world of mainstream pop music. Seriously, they are. Who else could possibly claim that title? OutKast? They're slightly eccentric, but not necessarily ground-breaking. Radiohead? It's been five years since they last put out a great album. Bjork? Ok... maybe it is Bjork, now that I think about it. At any rate... come on! I want more! One song isn't going to tide me over!
As for the song itself, it seems the Lips have really scaled back their sound. It's never really been easy to tell what direction the Flaming Lips are going in (for God's sake, who could possibly have seen something as incomprehensibly bizarre as Zaireeka coming?), so maybe this isn't representative of the entire album, but it's not really making me optimistic. This song sounds more akin to the relatively unadorned power pop of Clouds Taste Metallic (although this is much more slick and clean than anything on that album) than their last few albums, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for somebody who's spent the last few years acquainting himself with every earth-shattering second of an album like The Soft Bulletin, this just sounds plain and uninteresting.
The video reflects this stripped down sound as well. There's not a single strobe light, animal costume, disco ball, Vegas dancer, or trademark white suit to be found (Wayne Coyne is much better suited to a trademark white suit than Tom Wolfe, if you ask me). There's not even a single band member enclosed in a giant clear plastic bubble! It's almost like they've become the last thing you'd possibly expect the Flaming Lips to be: a normal rock band! Or at least as normal as the Flaming Lips can appear. Say it ain't so, boys!
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