Album Review: Deap Lips – Deap Lips

Acid trip of sounds

Deap Vally and The Flaming Lips got together to bless their fans with an album that fuses the styles of both bands. With this mixture of sounds, the collection is unexpected and exciting, no song is like the other. Deap Vally brings the rock and The Flaming Lips bring their electro sounds.

The self-titled album starts off with the previously released single “Home Thru Hell.” The song starts with sounds that could be from an intergalactic race battle, very futuristic, and the robotic vocals of Flaming Lips mixed with the rocking vocals of Deap Vally are just the cherry on top. The track smoothly transitions towards the next song, “One Thousand Sisters with Aluminum Calculators,” which is mostly instrumental and connects well with the other songs on the album. “Shit Talkin” hits softer notes, but Deap Lips stay true to their sound, floating through the galaxy, smooth sailing. “Hope Hell High” reminds one maybe a little of the opera scene in The Fifth Element. The vocals vary from high and opera-like to pausing abruptly. This song shows how much fun Deap Lips had produced this album. The song has more sounds in itself than some artist has in their entire album.

Again, the song blends perfectly into the following “Motherfuckers Got to Go” which is probably the most catchy one on the entire album because it’s basically just repeating “the motherfuckers got to go, yeah yeah yeah” over and over with an interception of a little rap section. Their voices sound a little like chipmunks on an LSD trip. “Love is Mind Control” is by far the longest song on the album and has some Beatles vibe to it, if the Beatles were female and made music today. “Love is Mind control” features so many highs and deeps, it feels like it is multiple songs in one. The outro sounds like drifting alone in space, waiting for someone to find you. Not someone finds you but something, the bass to “Wandering Witches,” a smoother, more relaxing sound.

“The Pusher” is about the dangers of certain drugs. The song is somehow disturbing with the lyrics and sounds combined, but that makes it a very exciting song as well. The vocals are distant and very robotic, but the beat ends in a jungle-like feeling. “Not A Natural Man” slightly monotone beat is surprising because most of the album is so much sound. The intergalactic voyage is coming to an end with “There is Know Right There is Know Wrong” and dramatic electric sounds and dark vocals. Even though it seems like the little space journey doesn’t end well, but the song is amazing.

Deap Lips show with their debut album how much fun they had with experiments and exploring the spectrum of sound. The album is not predictable and that’s why it is so exciting. The only downside of it might be that the songs are almost TOO blended into each other, this could be hard for people who listen to their music on shuffle a lot. This is something people can get over, though, especially with an album that is so well composed and put together with a lot of weird new sounds. Weird in its best way.

Alison Alber: Born and raised in Germany, I'm currently a multimedia journalism student at the University of Texas at El Paso. I enjoy writing about music as much as listening to it.
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