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The Flaming Lips, never strangers to odd concepts or extended musical ideas, have released their first true concept album with King's Mouth (no, Yoshimi with its mini-arc doesn't count). The album was composed to accompany Wayne's traveling art exhibit of the same name, the paintings being reprinted within the CD booklet to assist visualizing the concept. This concept, involving an orphaned giant baby who saves the world and is decapitated in the process and who's head is kept and celebrated inside by future generations, touches a lot of the same thematic beats the Lips have made their name on, particularly life, death, loss and the big L O V E.
Strange concepts aside, the LP can only be as strong as its tunes which, thankfully, are some of the best to come from the band's late period. Best described as a middle ground between Yoshimi's brighter production, Embryonic's penchant for the unsettling and At War With The Mystics' pervasive existential dread, King's Mouth also features narration from The Clash's Mick Jones which helps settle the band's cerebral concepts within their art pop meets experimental noise sound nicely.
A lot of the material here serves exclusively to further the conceptual side of the record, so definitely a piece meant to be taken in within a single setting. This isn't to say the LP lacks decent stand-alone jams, however. Our first true song, The Sparrow, sets the mood nicely with its upbeat-yet-minor processed tones and Wayne's typically in the clouds lyricism ("The universe brought you here, that's true/ The universe will take you away too"). Giant Baby starts with playful narration and similarly jovial jamming before taking an even heavier turn into crushing lyricism ("I could see my mother as she died/....and it helped me understand/ that life sometimes is sad"). The playing and musical experimentation continue throughout (the echoed vocals of Electric Fire, the freak-out jamming of FDB), but lyrically this LP remains in a place of somber reflection to the end.
While not on the level of the Lips' past master works (hard to top the perfection that is Soft Bulletin) King's Head is anything but inessential. Clocking in at slightly over 30 minutes it remains one of their shortest LP's, but the quality of the work within more than makes up for the shortened run time. If concept albums, psych rock or art pop appeal to you (or you happen to be into certain mind-expanding substances), King's Head may prove both an enjoyable journey and an enlightening one.
Choice jams; Giant Baby, How Many Times, Mouth of the King
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2020
- Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2019
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2019
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AstralWeed.Reviewed in Mexico on March 29, 2021
The Flaming Lips - The King's Mouth: ¡Los Flaming regresan por sus fueros!
