Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand

The Black Lips established a sound--sloppy, quick and dirty, punk-inspired garage rock—that they have never really deviated from. They’re determined to sound like the long-lost 60’s garage band whose album you would dig out of a bin in a record shop run by some long haired, perpetually stoned, middle aged dude, and wonder why you hadn’t heard of them before. Like The Monks, only less political and more bratty. Their last album, Good Bad Not Evil saw them going in a slicker, more polished direction, but you’d be hard pressed to call it mainstream. Now they’re back with 200 Million Thousand and, to my delight, they are snottier than ever.

“Take My Heart” kicks the album off on a high note. Dirty guitars and howling vocals that are less concerned with being in tune than just being heard. It’s this aesthetic that is carried through the album as a whole.  “Trapped in a Basement” sounds like a Doors demo, and “I’ll Be With You,” which sounds like a 50’s school dance band comprised of hobos from skid row, shows the boys “softer side”. The oddest track is the seemingly hip-hop inspired “The Drop I Hold” which name drops “blacklips.com” in its heroin-inspired rant.

To me this is what rock and roll should sound like—dirty and with no inflated sense of self-importance. What pisses me off about most of mainstream rock these days is all of the fucking grandiosity, all the preciousness, all the pre-packaged slickness that The Killers and The Airborne Toxic Events of the world are guilty of. At least you’ll never be able to accuse The Black Lips such offenses.
Get this record HERE

Band MySpace: www.myspace.com/theblacklips

 
-Erock.-