At Peace with the Lips

While it has been said that At War with the Mystics is Wayne Coyne’s indictment of the Bush administration and the motivation behind the war in Iraq, the light touch of the album, particularly the vocalizations, shows that they can still be important without being self-important. In the album opener, "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," while sounding vaguely reminiscent of Paul Simon, Coyne and company lend levity to the proceedings by including a vocal effect that sounds an awful lot like a talkbox, at times coming dangerously close to “Livin’ on a Prayer” territory. Since Richie Sambora’s resurrection of the talkbox in the summer of ’86, people around the world have been asking why Peter Frampton would encourage such abuse, and I was adamantly opposed to the effect ever being used again. But by conjuring memories of big hair, red spandex tights peeking through torn jeans, and the haughty rock-as-mythology theme of that album, Coyne successfully infuses humor and prevents the import of their message from seeming too forced or trite. Elsewhere, Wayne Coyne employs a quasi-falsetto to create the playful, ersatz Prince sound of "Free Radicals," and the album is replete with the sprawling, prog rock leanings of Pink Floyd.