Beleive it or not the Flaming Lips have been around since 1982. Today they are well known for there odd titled Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Although Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots sounds really weird, odd, and bizarre the album wasn't that weird. Actually I thought it was really easy to listen too. Hear It Is happens to be the bands debut album and although the title doesn't sound weird it is a lot odder and psychadelic than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The Flaming Lips have released a ton of albums and it all started here.
If you are looking for soothing, mellow electronica music do not look here. 20 years ago the Flaming Lips were completely different, they were actually a rock band. Hear It Is combines psychadelica, rock, pop, and punk. Swirling guitar riffs, pounding drum beats, and psychadelic loops. This album is raw, and the songs are all over the place. These songs go from soft psychadelic ballads, to rough 80's punk, all the way over to a trippy jazz influenced noise pop mess. I realize this sounds unappealing but every one of these songs are interesting and flooding with emotion and energy. This is not your typical 80's rock album. The Flaming Lips fuse together so many different genres and in result you get an energetic, raw, 80's punk/psychadelica album.
Wayne Coyne's vocals fit the album very well. Throughout his yelling, wailing, paranoid whispering, and sometimes singing he actually fits in almost perfectly. The amazing thing about Coyne is that he can go from a soft, gentle whisper and just explode into what sounds like a crazy man who had a too much whiskey. Either way things work out. Coyne has a soft, eerie voice and he sounds frantic and somewhat paranoid. However when the Lips decide to rock out Coyne turns things around and he lets all of his emotion out. He wails and yells through the microphone, his voice is very high-pitched but you can tell that he is having a good time. All in all you can tell that Coyne is a goofy character and his voice strives on Hear It Is.
The instruments clash together to make a sloppy, trippy, acid rock/psychadelic mess. The guitar is obviously the most noteable and important instruments featured on the album. The guitar plays swirling psychadelic riffs, rough edged rock solos and sometimes it plays soft gentle strums. The guitar is very effective and it stands out above the other instruments. It plays simple melodies, however it gets the job done when creating a sloppy, trippy and actually catchy sound. The drums are also very noticeable and a highlight of the album. Drozd's drum playing is loud, rough, and abrasive. He plays sort of like a punk drummer and you don't even have to listen to the drums because they jump out at you and play catchy and once again sloppy lines. The bass is just average. Sure you can hear the bass if you really listen but overall it just clashes with the other instruments to make the acid-blues sound. Overall the instruments work together extremely well to create a trippy acid-rock sound.
Hear It Is happens to be the bands most dark and trippy album. It sounds like an odd arrangement of dark psychadelic music and 80's punk and blues. The Flaming Lips also create very strange songs titles as 'Charlie Manson Blues' and 'Jesus Shootin' Heroin'. The titles won't mislead you either, the song titles are just as weird and bizarre as the actual songs. These songs range from the sloppy 80's punk 'Unplugged' to the dark, psychadelic 'Jesus Shootin Heroin.'The Lips still create very strange songs such as the twisted 'Man from Pakistan' and the eerie, acid-rock opener 'With You.' This happens to be the Lips most sloppy and unorganized album. Although Hear It Is never has a boring moment the songs don't really stick with you and a lot of these tracks are forgettable. A lot of these songs are hit and miss and even though I dislike three of these songs the highlightes are simply amazing. Hear Is Is is a sloppy, disorganized mess at times but I really think that this is a crazy, somewhat eerie and enjoyable album.
Overall I would say that this is a good album, but not one of the Lips best. Although Hear It Is contains some psychadelic gems it definately isn't for anyone. If you are a Flaming Lips fan than you should pick this up but if you want to get into the band don't start here. This is a raw, trippy acid-psychadelic album that has dark dreary moments and some crazy rock moments. I would recommend this for any fans of psychadlic music or any fans of alt/rock. Although there isn't anything mindblowing on here Hear It Is is a very effective, bizarre and fun album.
