Title: 200 Million Thousand Format: LP Cat#: VICE ??? Label: Vice Records Year: February 24th 2009

1. Take My Heart 2. Drugs 3. Starting Over 4. Let It Grow 5. Trapped In A Basement 6. Short Fuse 7. I'll Be With You 8. Big Black Baby Jesus of Today 9. Again And Again 10. Old Man 11. The Drop I Hold 12. Body Combat 14. I Saw God 15. Meltdown (Hidden Track)

200 Million Thousand - REVIEW

The new Black Lips record has been unveiled amidst Indian tales of Yankee Mooning (or a 'culture clashing shitstorm' as it has been more commonly referred too), as well as a trademark never-ending tour schedule which sees the band play one show every 1.6 days. News that the band were going to forego their usual gig-to-day ratio and inject real production values into their new album certainly wetted the appetite when it was reported the band had debunked to a converted art studio in Decatur, Georgia to commence work on the follow up to 2007’s Good Bad Not Evil. A steadier daily work ethic and the ritual of rehearsing over and over was said to have galvanised the band and the new album promised to be a rawer and purposely less polished effort than its predecessor.

200 Million Thousand completes a trilogy of albums which took Black Lips from lo-fi to hi-fi and back, starting with 2005’s Let It Bloom. The follow up, Good Bad Not Evil, was their cleanest and most commercial sounding record to date and threw doo-wop, country, 60’s garage and a whole host of genres into the melting pot. The album certainly made waves and brought them a mainstream American TV debut and the opportunity to play mega-arenas opening for The Raconteurs last summer. With the band seemingly on an upward trajectory, expectations were high for the new album.

For this record, the band have dig deep and found some great dirty hooks, seemingly torn from the annals of classic 60's psych-rock, regurgitated and then executed in their own style. Album opener Take My Heart chugs along with a belly of beer for fuel, with Cole’s vocal take characteristically unintelligible. Starting Over evokes the weary haze of a Sunday Morning before seeking solace in drinking beer and blowing your mind. Trapped in a Basement takes inspiration from everyone’s favourite Austrian grand-father, Josef Fritzl, and is hauntingly executed from the perspective of a captive daughter (“I’m daddy’s favourite girl”).

What makes Black Lips refreshing in today’s generic music scene in that they have four active songwriters with distinctively different styles. This diversity often results in a captivating, shape-changing aural experience present on their previous records and on this album too. Drugs is a 50’s Chuck Berry meets Joe Strummer rocker about being young, picking up chicks and puffing marijuana penned by bassist Jared Swilley (‘BC Bud’ or ‘Buddha’ is a particularly potent Canadian-grown weed that once induced the most critical panic attack of this reviewers life in the hot Algarve sun… good times!). Guitarist Ian St Pe contributes the snarly Body Combat which has a dirty Doors-esque riff-line permeating the track. Guitarist and main contributor Cole Alexander offers some of the albums more outlandish tracks such as Big Black Baby Jesus of Today (a title which does not seem to be that outrageous now that Obama sits in the White House... discuss) and The Drop I Hold which comes complete with a sample taken from one of the Jonestown Massacre victims (pre-cyanide-laced juice, obviously). Short Fuse is drummer Joe Bradleys song about… well… having a short fuse. This track is an album highlight and continues the volatile/dysfunctional narrative explored in Good Bad Not Evil’s Bad Kids.

The only accusations of plagiarism the band are likely to be accused of are the riffs stolen from their own back catalogue. Again & Again’s opening bars are easily mistaken for FAD and live favourite Hippie Hippie Hoorah smothers Old Man like an outbreak of liver spots. Expect the band to file a lawsuit against themselves in the not too distant future. This reuse of sounds and riffs works well on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack-alike I'll Be With You where Jared's opening vocal croaks from the speakers like a 60’s Bob Dylan (that’s age 60, not the decade)

In terms of production values some tracks, in particular the vocals, sound as though they have been recorded in a zinc plated biscuit box. If Bob Dylan went searching for a 'thin, wild mercury sound' then Black Lips have found it's twice-removed second cousin. Spare a thought, though, as Dylan later followed his nose to God so you have been warned. At the moment, though, the closest the band gets to any religious enlightenment is in the albums finale 'I Saw God'. Cole's paean to acid is one of his most substantial tracks to date. With numerous expletives, occasional belching, Lynchian backward vocals and the sample of a nine year old boy on LSD rapping eloquently about reading the bible six times and being Pope - who genuinely expects more from a closing track?

200 Millions Thousand's shortcomings seem to be a handful of throwaway tracks which have little to offer other than pad out the album. Again & Again (a pre-Stooges Iggy Pop track written in 1964) and Old Man do slow the album down and the mp3 generation play-list terrorists will undoubtedly mix them out of the running order. To be honest it is rare these days to find a recording artist that doesn't have low points on their records (although Razorlight buck the trend and do the reverse with an alarming consistency).

Frequently melodic, sometimes discordant though always original is how one would describe this album, but those who are expecting a break-through record will quickly ascertain from the first few listens that it is unlikely to happen with 200 Million Thousand. It lacks the single-friendly buzz and charm of tracks such as O! Katrina, Cold Hands and Bad Kids which made Good Bad Not Evil such a potential monster. As it goes, though, it is a captivating record and fits nicely into the Black Lips canon. It is a pleasure to listen to a band that makes the records they want to, without any room for compromise; and this is how you feel after listening to the album – a unique slice of wasted South-East Americana from one of the best live acts currently on the circuit.

Review by Michael Laurence (2009)