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.
90/100
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