Never shy of breaking convention, boundaries or expectations The Black Lips are back after an extended hiatus touring their latest album ‘Satan’s Graffiti Or God’s Art?’ released earlier this year through Vice Records. The band have always made a merry dance of genre-fication and this new album only turns their obtuseness up a notch, shimmying wildly into the psychedelic realms of ‘concept album’. Produced by Sean Lennon at his recording studio in upstate New York it features guest appearances from Yoko Ono (naturally) and Saul Adamczewski of the anarchic slack rockers Fat White Family, and the results are not surprisingly unruly. Sublime love songs meet unnerving subversion, baggy political slow dances crash into raw mid-tempo rave-ups like a drunk uncle at a wedding and there’s a lot of musical sprawling and unbridled activity in between. Perhaps not so shocking for a band defined by such dramatic shifts in fidelity – and as ever it’s still pure chemistry at the core, however dramatically reformulated. Buckle in for a beautiful, bumpy ride.
Mon 20 Nov at Hare & Hounds, 7.30pm at The Hare and Hounds, 106 High St, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 7JZ £15 www.seetickets.com
Words: Hana Borrowman
Published on: Wed 1 Nov 2017