Black Lips - Satan's Graffiti or God's Art?

The Quietus

Few bands shapeshift as capably as Atlanta, Georgia’s Black Lips. Quintessential garage rock chameleons, they have filtered far-flung influence across seven transmogrifying records without pausing long to gaze upon the lay of their land. Album number eight, Satan's Graffiti or God’s Art? hurtles into bold territory, birthing an episodic symphony of sorts that not only rewards the repeated listen, but necessitates it.

Produced by Sean Lennon – who recently navigated The Moonlandingz’ latest Interplanetary Class Classics into masterfully wanton worlds – the record doubles up as a clean break of sorts for the revamped quintet. With guitarist Ian St. Pe and original drummer Joe Bradley out of the frame, bassist Jared Swilley and guitarist/vocalist Cole Alexander head a mixt ensemble featuring drummer Oakley Munson, the sorcerous Zumi Rosow on sax, former guitarist Jack Hines, low-key guest vocalist Yoko Ono, and Fat White Family’s Saul Adamczewski. Bleeding into soft focus via the disembodied death march of ‘Overture’, one is lured into a mottled procession of squalid tales and deceptively refined balladry.

Having insulated themselves from society during the recording process (an au courant move in itself, all things considered) there is an air of almost self-contained masquerade attached to the genre-leaping idiosyncrasies found on Satan's Graffiti or God’s Art?. This is the sound of a band who, galvanized by their new-fangled arrangement, mutate at will, veering between spitting garage blitzes such as lead single ‘Can’t Hold On’ and swaggering masterstroke ‘Squatting In Heaven’ to the root-fifth psychobilly strut of ‘Occidental Front’ and ‘Got Me All Alone’ – an early peak that takes basest Waitsian histrionics and melds it with the sonic equivalent of the very doomiest of delirium tremens. It’s this feature-length changeability that sees Black Lips rear a curious beast that, whilst openly throwback, contorts the blueprints with howling flair.

Whereas a perfectly zealous and uniquely privileged take on early Beatles gem ‘It Won’t Be Long’ (a song composed by the producer’s famous father, no less) makes for a frisson-inducing surge of warped garage homage re-imagining the original’s linear thrust via thumping rhythms redolent of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, it’s the more reclined efforts here where the real gems reveal themselves. Take ‘Wayne’ and ‘Crystal Night’, two brilliantly burrowing ditties that flirt with pastiche without kowtowing to outright caricature. Where the former marries breezy slide guitar with goofy talk box frills and sugar-coated harmonic climbs, the latter could – were it not for its knowingly woozy nuances – be a bygone R&B hit of the early the 60s, all swooning and pristine and earworming. Here, as on the waltzing spell of ‘Loser’s Lament’ and the spooked-out, Jefferson Airplane-on-benzos intermission 'Elektrik Spiderwebz', Black Lips reveal their savoir-faire of exerting restraint.

Fading out of view with a reprise of the opening overture in the form of ‘Sunday Mourning’ – a minute-long ‘Finale’ fusing latter-era Flaming Lips la-la-las, incorporeal sax lines stemming from Angelo Badalamenti's seedier Twin Peaks themes and Adamczewski waxing delirious about stumbling upon Gerry Adams and his magic beans on the highway – Satan's Graffiti or God’s Art? answers its own question with a fearless “both, at once, and more.”

Whilst the band will likely invite detraction for the sheer level of variation on offer here (and truth be told, a few tracks could easily have been trimmed from the whole) as with countless other sprawling anti-operettas of its ilk, taking time to get to know this eighteen-track album pays dividends. A mélange of harum scarum garage-psych, unabashed homage and carefully-crafted pop reprieve, it finds Black Lips at their most daring, exploratory and downright vital.

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Drowned In Sound 60

Black Lips have dropped the simple garage-punk of songs like ‘Bad Kids’ from their earlier albums, instead exploring deeper into their psychedelic side for the past few years. This latest album always promised to be a deeper extension of that muddier side of the band since it was announced that Sean Lennon would be helming the sessions. What wasn’t clear was the the album was going to be the band’s opus; a sprawling 19 track colossus, complete with intro, outro and interludes. The band also had a lineup change, reconnecting with past guitarist Jack Hines, whilst adding saxophone player Zumi Rosow and drummer Oakley Munson. Throw in a few appearances from Fat White Family’s Saul Adamczewski and Yoko Ono, and Satan’s Art or God’s Graffiti almost feels like it could be the band’s attempt to churn out one last mission statement, encompassing everything they’ve done.

And it does seem to take hints from their back catalogue. There’s the demented horns and heavy crunching guitars of Ronson-era Black Lips on tracks like ‘Squatting In Heaven’, there’s some unhinged Sixties doo-wop, like from Good Bad Not Evil on ‘Wayne’ and the dark, psychotic garage of ‘Come Ride With Me’ on 200 Million Thousand.

The best tracks on the album work when they take the classic formula and add some new elements. ‘Wayne’ compliments its simple doo-wop ballad formula with some vocoded vocals, which add warm layers of vocal harmonies, whilst ‘Crystal Night’ is a messy, drunken 5Fifties prom homage that has pitched-up, near angelic backing vocals. These interesting production techniques make a much better stab at modernity than the band’s previous attempt on ‘Do the Vibrate’ from Underneath the Rainbow.

Satan’s Graffiti Or God’s Art?’s greatest weakness is its length. Whilst the band’s attempt to create something more conceptual than usual is admirable, it's hard to say for sure they have pulled it off. Opening on the bombastic gut-punches of ‘Occidental Front’ and ‘Can’t Hold On’ sets the album off at a rattling pace, but after ‘Squatting in Heaven’ it starts to lose that momentum. Whilst the interludes are atmospheric, they mostly sound like half-songs. ‘Elektrik Spiderwebz’, for example, is a lush, eerie jam, but the wailed vocals over the top add nothing to it; hearing a completed vocal take would have been much more fulfilling. With songs rarely reaching over four minutes, it's hard to get truly bored, but there’s no denying that many central tracks on the album find the band reverting to type.

Waiting till the end of the 19-track monster pays off however. ‘Lucid Nightmare’ is free of the cluttered sonics that plague some of the tracks, and the deadpan chorus sounds suspiciously Fat Whites-esque (Adamczewski actually guests on a different song) . There’s also the small matter of the band’s cover of ‘It Won’t Be Long’ where they turn the classic Beatles love song, into something far creepier. The guitars sound dark and menacing, whilst the slight melody change in the chorus transforms the whole song’s mood in an instant. ‘Losers Lament’ is the last full track on the album, and possibly the best. A rare moment of calm from Black Lips causes the emotion of the vocals to seep through, whilst the chiming acoustic guitars turn it into a wonderfully lo-fi ballad. Creating a 19-track album out of Black Lips’ brand of messy psychedelic punk was always going to be a huge ask. And they have nearly pulled it off.

The Guardian 60

(Vice)

The Black Lips’ 2014 album, Under the Rainbow, which was produced by the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, didn’t deliver the perhaps expected commercial breakthrough. Thus the cult Atlantans’ ninth studio album sees them reverting to the sound established when they were trashy garage rockers who once caused outrage in India with their onstage nudity. Produced by Sean Lennon – it features backing vocals from his mother, Yoko Ono, but unfortunately they are inaudible – Satan’s Graffiti is more Captain Beefheart than the Beatles. However, a scuzzy cover of It Won’t Be Long takes the Fab Four’s 1963 sound on a trip into the wasted, psychedelic underground. Elsewhere, big riffs and a honking saxophone pile into swampy blues, moonshine country, rollicking rockabilly, glam racket and sometimes baffling cacophonies – but whenever things get too chaotic, their sharp songwriting pulls them back from the brink. Can’t Hold On and Wayne are gloriously catchy, and Crystal Night is a truly sweet ballad, despite the recorded presence of what sounds like a chipmunk on helium.