Album Details

• Artist: The Black Lips
• Album: Good Bad Not Evil
• Label: Vice
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2007-10-11

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Sinister Garage wonders The Black Lips follow up their live release earlier this year with a new studio release called Good Bad Not Evil that is still heavy on the mayhem and questionable morals, but which branches out from their signature squalid sound. Yep, it is still squalid, but do I detect a soft, beating heart in there?

By mellowing, I’m pointing more to the music than the lyrics. Though there is a love song (about a girl from the Big N.O. named Katrina) and a fractured attempt at tenderness (they can’t pull off a tune like “How Do You Tell A Child Someone Has Died” without drifting into the cynical), the emotional range is extended by tunes like the droning "Veni Vidi Vici" and "It Feels Alright," with its psych-pop touches. “Bad Kids” even features a nifty if crude country groove. A lyrical exposure of emotions beyond the transgressive does show up in the moody “Cold Hands.” Of course, sloppy garage rock is still in full effect, witness “Slime & Oxygen.” Love them or hate them, and I fall into the former category, Black Lips are never less than electric and menacing in the joy they find in fucking up and raving on. Good Bad Not Evil is not The Black Lips best, but one that hints at a restlessness with their style that may open up bigger doors down the road.

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