Good Bad Not Evil

Black LipsGood Bad Not Evil 

After releasing the self-proclaimed “best live album ever” earlier in the year, Atlanta’s Black Lips hit the studio to record Good Bad Not Evil, their first major label studio album. Though they’ve established a reputation which implies that the magic behind what they do lies on the stage and not in the studio, Good Bad Not Evil would argue otherwise, presenting a (finally) fully-baked band of young, reckless rockers who’d rather pretend the last 30 years of music never happened. The real surprise with Good Bad, however, is that the ‘stached-out rockers accomplish this oft-doomed brand of nostalgia-soaked rock n’ roll without ever appearing to be another by-the-books outfit. They take, but more even so, they give.

Opening with “I Saw a Ghost (Lean),” a song that instantly brings to mind the 13th Floor Elevators (but not in a Spacemen 3 kind of way), the Black Lips get loose, swaggering their way through an instantly likeable barebones rock song that’s blanketed with a strange, charming layer of rough-cut noise. It’s an amazing start to an amazing album that will very likely leave plenty worrying that the Black Lips are another copy cat band bent on late-60s psychedelic nostalgia. Not so fast! Keep listening (or, if you haven’t already cued up your iTunes, keep reading).

Next up is “O Katrina,” a track that opens with one of the most familiar rock basslines of all-time (no need to name the song here, you’ll know it instantly) before taking a hard turn – seemingly out of irony – into yet another economically-played rocker about, you guessed it, a hurricane named Katrina. Guitar solos, growls and an underlying rhythm section that thumps and stomps amount to an aural assault that perfectly captures the energy of the band that made Rolling Stone call them “One of the best live bands in America.” By the time track three, “Veni Vidi Vici” kicks in, dusty and strange, it’s apparent that the Black Lips are no longer crazy kids with loud guitars; no, somehow they’ve become artists. And while bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives and The Vines (listed here in order of worth) came off like impressionists crippled by their folk’s record collections, the Black Lips take as many of the good elements of many of the same bands who inspired The Thes and run it through their indie-minded, post-grunge filter – not dissimilar to a mid-90s Guided by Voices, though to much different results.

By the time listeners get to the all-too-honest track seven, “How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died,” it’s clear that Good Bad Not Evil is the infrequent real thing: a proper introduction to a band that is just plain better than the others in their design department. Other songs pass quickly, some poppy, some just weird, that bring to mind other garage rock-era bands, but with “South Park” references, purposefully broken vocals and a clear Gen-X attitude, the Black Lips appear wholly modern in mindset as they play their chosen brand of raucous, lo-fi pop … you know, the kind that will always and forever sound good. The Black Lips, with what should be their breakout album, manage to play said style of forever-missed rock n’ roll in a way that makes this reviewer want to use that one line … you know, the one about “breathing new life.” I love raucous roll, even when it comes with a mustache.  9/10

Written by G. William Locke