Three years removed from 1999’s critically-adored The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips have re-emerged in the 21st Century with a collection of decidedly pretty songs concerning love, loss, spiritual insecurity and robots. Bellicose pink robots, precisely. Still reading? Good, because the Lips will have you know that Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is not the dreaded “concept album”—that most empty of all art-rock cliches—and for this we should be thankful, because Yoshimi’s many finer moments are found when the band abandons its suspect sci-fi storyline and sticks to its undeniable knack for quirky humanity. “Fight Test” and “Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell” lace gorgeous and insistent pop melody through even-more-gorgeous and insistent space-funk, while the exquisite ballad “Do You Realize?” reminds us that the Lips still rank among pop’s most gifted songsmiths. And though Yoshimi contains plenty of trademark sonic meanderings (some more charming than others), and the robot situation never far off, it is Wayne Coyne’s voice—always witty but never affected—that rescues Yoshimi from ever approaching obscure pretension.
Originally published in Paper, August 2002
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