Arabia Mountain [Import]

Truth be told, I thought the Black Lips were done. Over 12 or so years the band released a number of solid garage rock records, hitting their peak with 2007's Good Bad Not Evil. That record, which positioned them at the front of the current noisy garage trend, was followed by 2009's much anticipated 200 Million Thousand. And while most fans and writers seemed to dig 200 Million upon its release, you rarely heard anyone mention - let alone play - that album a month or so after its initial release. The Lips had, it seemed, run out of corners in their garage, and were thus caught stretching to continue to do new, interesting things within the confines of their limiting palate. There's really only so much you can do, they say, when you play poppy garage rock: you can turn it up; you can make it messier; you can rip off another garage rock band that sounds two percent different than the one you were ripping off before; you can die young.

Arabia Mountain, the band's sixth studio album since their 2003 debut, is a rebirth of sorts. Produced by hotshot Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Duran Duran, Richard Swift, etc.), the sound here mixes the cleaned-up vibe of Good Bad Not Evil with the Black Lips' earlier, messier work to brilliant results. Boasting a production value and sound that at once resembles both The Sonics and early-era Kinks, Arabia Mountain's 16 songs pass quickly and with variety. The punk-influenced vocal style of Cole Alexander is still up front (probably more than ever), and here and there he loudly embraces his "bratty kid" voice for entire songs at a time. Track three, "Spidey's Curse, a song about Spider-Man being molested as a boy, is Cole at his most lovable and accessible while "Raw Meat" feels as much like a classic-era Ramones track as anything we've heard since Joey passed on 10 years ago now. Tracks like "The Lie" and "You Keep On Running" see the Lips taking their influence from more psychedelic bands like The Small Faces, The 13th Floor Elevators and selected Byrds. And it works, even if it's not quite what I personally prefer to hear from this crew of rowdy misfits.

At their best on cuts like opener "Family Tree" and "Bicentennial Man," the Lips dig their way through the best sounds of the 60s on Arabia Mountain, never hiding behind production choices or garage cliches. For the first time in their already lengthy - and incredibly busy - career, this quartet has finally put up a complete work to be taken seriously by music fans. There's variety and cohesion here that no one expected from a band that was, before now, known more as pleasantly sloppy noisemakers than as nostalgic album-makers. Make no mistake, with Arabia Mountain Atlanta's Black Lips prove once and for all that they're the real deal. Rather than hide behind kitsch-y style and punk-rock poseur moves, they've whipped up a highly satisfying batch of songs that pays tribute to the 60s in a fun, youthful way. One of the best records of 2011, easily.

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I'm a huge Black Lips fan. I've been following their music for years now and never expected an album like this. It took me about a week of listening to it to appreciate it. I would never go so far as to say it's their best album. It's not rough enough, loud enough, aggressive enough, but it's different. I'd like to disagree with the other post saying it's better than their last album. If you really enjoy the Black Lips, 200 Million Thousand was them taking a step back into their roots. This album is going a new direction. A more "let's go party and have a fun time" direction. I support it 100%. You gotta change.

While it doesn't have any songs as classic as "Bad Kids" (off "Good Bad Not Evil", in many ways perfectly capturing the Black Lips' aesthetic), Arabia Mountain is in my opinion the Black Lips' most satisfying album yet.

Mark Ronson's production job nicely hones the 60's Nuggets/Beach Boys aspects of the Lips sound while still allowing their bratty humor to shine through as enjoyably obnoxious as ever (with snotty lyrics Brian Wilson never even dreamed of). In many ways, the Lips and Ronson meet half-way - the sound is a definite improvement over the production of "Good Bad Not Evil" and light years better than "200 Million Thousand" (which indeed was torpedoed by its low-fi production, in my opinion, being close to unlistenable as a result) but still supports rather than overwhelm the songs. It's not a hi fidelity sound, but at least it's mid-fi for the first time.

If you're a Black Lips fan, this is the album you've been waiting for them to make (good songs with good production), with a maturation to their songwriting, if not their lyrics.

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