The Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand

Having been declared by the New York Times as, “The hardest working band,” front-runners of the Athens, GA scene, the Black Lips, have received their fair share of hungry press ogling these past few years. Now, with universal acclaim (minus India) and immense pressure for their new full-length 200 Million Thousand, the world seems to be calling on them to become the rock stars they’ve pretended to be since their days of high school rebellion. The result is an album that’s been appropriately steeped in paranoia before revisiting the usual themes of drug use, growing up, and of course, bromance.

200 Million manages to be their most stylistically-diverse album to date while paying homage to all their previous efforts, and I’m relieved to hear that most of the production quality remains loyally sub-par to industry standard. “I’ll Be With You,” is a goofy declaration of friendship that references the jangly end of summer vibe put forth on 2005’s Let It Bloom. One of the few occasions where they sound kinda sterile, “Short Fuse,” proves them to be self-aware of their burdening “garage revival” tag by evoking the likes of classic rock weirdos the 13th Floor Elevators. The drumming is much more succinct, and the song structure, complete with bright acoustic harmonies, is more obvious than ever.

“Take My Heart,” stacks and swirls like fellow workhorses the Brian Jonestown Massacre if they were to spend more time surfing and less time being a psychologist’s field day. Luckily, its still scruffy as hell, and leads straight into raucous clapper, “Drugs,” one of the best songs they’ve ever written. This twisted sock-hop confidently showcases the Black Lips at the top of their game, cruising effortlessly as it assures us, “Don’t you worry sugar you got nothin’ to loose.” However, If this comes off like some sort of devious foreshadowing, that’s because it is. They’re about to stick their dirty hands in some fairly strange places.

At one point, they even pay a visit to the Casbah on “The Drop I Hold,” where semi-hip-hop drumming bounces off a freaked out reggae sample. The high-hat twitters like a Dr. Dre beat and the vocals are half-sung half-rapped, playing sarcastically confrontational until the chorus, which sounds closer to RnB than “flower-punk.” Less startling is the pounding piano romp of “Elijah,” and the existential psych-ballad of “Old Man,” but for a band that claims to be “too punk to be hippie,” they sure are riding pretty close to the quirky satire and nervous posture that characterized so much of the Summer of Love era.

But of course, they’re still tequila-soaked conquistadors at heart, and don’t mind meeting us halfway sometimes by showing their roots, even reaching back to their pre-Black Lips incarnation as The Spooks on “Trapped in a Basement,” busting out some creepy cemetery blues. And just before you accuse them of going soft, they pump a lethal injection of fuzz straight into the main vein of the “(Hidden Track),” finishing in a wonderfully cheeky explosion of sliding bass lines and bravado.

Admittedly, its a bit disheartening to find the Black Lips so self-conscious. Their gloriously belched tales of hard-knock adolescence now seem romanticized and vaguely aimed in the direction of a Born to Run for the defunct 2000’s. Which is unsettling, because the very idea of these mustache-rockers developing some sort of attack plan goes against the toppling on-the-verge-of-blacking-out aesthetic that compliments their polarizing live show so well. Perhaps they’re skeptical about trying to rise above all the buzzworthyness on momentum alone, or maybe they just want to prove that their success wasn’t some adrenal fluke; its anyone’s guess. Ah man, what a drag it is getting old.

200 Million Thousand is out now on Vice Records, and the Black Lips are currently on tour in the US.