BLACK LIPS

A 40-minute rock and roll odyssey, tripping through DIY genres where garage rock meets new wave pop, and disgruntled country shakes hands with epic western soundtracks.

The 14-track album captures the energy and spirit of early Black Lips while simultaneously applying new approaches to songwriting. The album is a musical merry-go-round, a journey featuring road-weary tales from the underbelly of a lights-out America.

It’s bookended by “The Illusion” parts one and two: a barroom quest for hope, fear, and hate, thwarted at each turn by a sense of resignation, “you reach for the sky / but it’s an illusion.”

Elsewhere, “Wild One” plays out like a Morricone romp through another day in Hell. A mantra for the hungover, a skin-crawling lament in praise of the wild at heart. “Tippy Tongue” sees Black Lips take on 60s girl group soul, like The Shangri-Las and Ronettes infiltrated by Jayne/Wayne County, paying homage to Buddha Records.

Meanwhile, “Kassandra” has a guitar sound scrubbed clean for a Sunday, chiming its way through ever-spiralling salvos like The Chocolate Watchband with Zappa on vocals. “Zulu Saints” is an upbeat country honk, a good-time brush with bravado, peppered with Cole on an incredulous radio phone-in show, looking for black-eyed peas and winning big on the slot machines.