(Warner Brothers)
By Sean Moeller
As parents are unequivocally urged to accept, as a general rule of thumb, that they are to love each of their children equally, showing no sort of preference for any of their offspring, I’m quick to remind myself that I am not yet a parent and therefore do not have to abide by such silly social requisites. I can play favorites and while Wayne Coyne may be the finest entertainer of our immediate generation (sorry Bernie Mac; double-sorry Triumph), the newest Flaming Lips record – though justly acknowledging that these are still the three guys willing to go mess around in parking garages to get recordings and the same guys who created a monstrously ambitious album (“Zaireeka”) in 1997, meant to be played simultaneously on four separate stereos – is perplexing and dubious and, dare I say, a tough child to love.

Only, you find a way to like it, if for no other reason than it is related to “The Soft Bulletin,” “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and “Clouds Taste Metallic.” You see some of the same bone structure, it rolls its vowels the same way, lolls around in familiarly wacky sounds and smiles at you in that same proudly innocent/charming way. The eight repetitive nos and the eight repetitive yeahs, plus the morphed computer voice in the album’s opener, “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” are fun, but not as fun as we’ve had with these Lips in the past. The oddly ambiguous song about some unnamed pop starlet in “The Sound of Failure/It’s Dark…Is It Always This Dark?” (Could it be Christina? Could it be Jessica? Could it be who? All we’re for sure of is it’s not Britney or Gwen) is slow and beautiful, but maybe not as beautiful as the things we’re used to getting from Coyne. It’s hard not to feel that some of these good, but not great tracks have had first lives on previous albums, but now they’re wearing wigs, dipping into the jar of face putty and are experimenting with different facial hair patterns to conspire against our sense of direction – the old runaround trick. It’s hard not to feel that Coyne is feeding us the same meal again, running the same grand finale out into the ring to amaze us with the severed thumb trick or the quarter behind our ear.

That said, “At War With The Mystics,” while being a plastic, playable (though not in the least annoying) version of Jerry Lewis speaking in that blubbery, high-pitched voice that used to be his schtick, is not simply a facsimile or a rehashing of prior conquests. It strikes a cord that makes it hard to deny that we have feelings for this little one. It might be the runt of the litter, or the less cute of the litter, but it’s not unlovable. The work that bassist/keyboardist Michael Ivins and drummer Steven Drozd put into the record is astute and dynamic, but other than for the moments on “Yeah,” “Sound of Failure” and closer “Goin’ On,” it’s almost as if Coyne isn’t out there enough, challenging the ideas to shape themselves up and be all that they are. And maybe it’s disappointment that makes us keep “At War” at arm’s length, just patting it’s good boy head, but believing full and well that his brothers and sisters got the looks and the brains, those lucky ducks.