Flaming Lips

“The W.A.N.D.”

(Warner Bros)

Okay, fortunes changed for Flaming Lips with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin, but the band released its first album in 1985. This song from the upcoming Flaming Lips’ album, At War With the Mystics, is a little cluttered. With a big, fuzzy guitar riff, busy drums, phased backing vocals and scratched/strobed voices clipping in and out, it’s hard to focus on Wayne Coyne’s vocal. Coyne’s affection for ascending melodies gives the song the uplifting quality that has characterized recent Flaming Lips — even when meditating on mortality — but the psychedelic washes mutes the effect.