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If The Soft Bulletin was a modern-day Pet Sounds, then this album is a modern-day Dark Side of the Moon. The difference, in my opinion, is that Dark Side of the Moon isn't all that great, while this album is fantastic. I know, I know, I must be crazy for not liking DSotM, but for all of post-Barrett Floyd's studio mastery, I've always felt their songwriting was average at best. In fact, I feel that in most of their concept-heavy albums (particularly DSotM and The Wall) Waters may have actually deliberately used lush soundscapes and philosophical lyrics in attempt to cover up his inferior (compared to Barrett) songwriting skills
But enough about Pink Floyd: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is like DSotM in terms of studio wizardry, except that the songwriting is excellent on every single track. So if you DO love DSotM, you will love this maybe even more! The first four tracks don't really fit the description I just gave, however. Tracks 1 and 3 are pure pop excellence, upbeat jams with fun (but not stupid) lyrics and incredibly catchy hooks, plus some of that signature Flaming Lips quirkiness. Tracks 2 and 4 are similar in style, both focusing on purely-electronic sounds (as opposed to the mix of electronic sounds and filtered instruments from 1 and 3) and VERY skillful drumming. Track 2 is a groovy jam with a slick bassline and very in-the-pocket percussion, with loopy, falsetto-ey lyrics and smooth transitions from major to minor tonality. Track 4 is an instrumental (mostly), actually Part 2 of the title track (track 3 is Part 1). It focuses on the same pallete of sounds from track 2, but used to opposite effect: the synth is angry and glitchy, the drums are absolutely thunderous, cymbal-heavy, and have more elasticity, and the coldly-disconcerting falsetto has been replaced with ferocious female shrieks. It's a wonderful piece.
After track 4 is where the DSotM parallels apply heavily. The first four tunes are really, really great, and I do believe most critics say the album goes downhill afterward, but I would stalwartly disagree. The rest of the album does have less energy, to be sure, but what it loses in catchiness it gains in compositional complexity and (like Pink Floyd) soundscape. Everyone will surely have their own favorites, but I particularly like track 7, "Are You a Hypnotist?" and track 10, "All We Have is Now." The former is veeeeeerry DSotM-esque in terms of mood. It's dark, emotional, and very dense. A particularly good sonic effect is the speed oscillation of one of the backing tracks, creating a warbling sound similar to the music in old VHS tapes. The minor-major shift at the end of the chorus is also incredibly effective. Track 10 probably should have been the closer, and it is excellent. It has a simple ABAB format, with only slight lyrical differences between A parts (2 lines), but three things make this track really stand out. First, there is the melody itself, which is one of the best that the Lips have written, with a lilting rising-and-falling quality. The second is a combination of Coyne's singing (delicate, precise, no vibrato) and the electronic effects laid over it (it seems like the overtones have been diminished, and the overall sound has been compressed and slightly electronic-ized), creating a flat, dry tone that somehow carries a very specific emotion. It's both solemn and blissful, paralleling the dual nature of the song's lyrics (essentially: our time is short, which is sad, but we have Now and Now is beautiful and wonderful). The final thing about this song is the rhythm. Oh my goodness, the rhythm. It's very simple: sparse percussion in part A, a tiny accelerando, and sparse percussion in part B. But that accelerando is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. The actual numerical amount of tempo increase, the speed at which it changes, the way the rest of the song follows it... everything about that little accelerando is marvelously executed and conveys as much emotion and meaning as the whole rest of the album, at least for me.
Okay, I'm done with this review. The tracks I didn't mention are also all great (though the final track REALLY should not be the final track), but I'm not going to discuss them. I talked about the first four because they are pop miracles that EVERYONE will probably love, and since the ones after that are more complex and ambiguous, everyone will probably have different opinions on them, so I just talked about MY favorites. But they're all great, this album is great, and you should buy it right now.
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I like this band a lot.
I'm glad I found this audio cd on Amazon. I like it a lot. Their songs are interesting. The singer has a unique voice. I am going to try some of their other albums too.
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