The Flaming Lips follow the excellent 'Race For The Prize' with a more fragile offering from 'The Soft Bulletin', for once leaving the psychedelic studio effects alone to present a straighter composition. However, Wayne Coyne's gentle voice strikingly similar to that of his mate Jonathon Donahue of Mercury Rev - never fails to give this music a beautifully ethereal quality.
The Peter Mokran-mixed radio edit is alarmingly brief and, although this release may well give The Flaming Lips their first significant chart placing, its main function ought to be in alerting a wider public to the band's recent, wonderful album.
Oh yeah, and if you just happen to have 4 separate CD players lying around, along with the odd speaker and enough cable to put on an Iron Maiden gig, why not rig it all up and play four copies of 2nd and 3rd tracks together? This, you see, is the way in which these tracks were meant to be heard. If someone does actually manage to put the necessary system together and synch start all four copies together perfectly please drop us an e-mail. We bet it sounds great!
