At War With the Mystics by The Flaming Lips
At War with the Mystics is the eleventh album by the Flaming Lips. It was released on April 3, 2006, in international markets, and April 4, 2006, in the United States. The album is more guitar-driven and features more politically themed lyrics than The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. "The Wizard Turns On..." won a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album was nominated for the Best Alternative Album Grammy. The 5.1 mix of the album was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album in 2008. The track "It Overtakes Me" has gained considerable interest, being featured as the soundtrack to a UK television commercial for Beck's beer, and "The W.A.N.D." has been used in European advertisements for Bud Light and for Dell Computers in the UK and the U.S. It includes a different mix of the song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", which was originally used as part of the soundtrack to the 2005 film Wedding Crashers.
The Flaming Lips tackle radicals and world leaders with this pensive and playful cosmic celebration. Bouncy clap-along "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" questions how one would handle world power, while "Free Radicals" makes a plea to suicide bombers over Prince-like funk. But earthly evils soon dissipate into sweeping interstellar ballads like the melancholic "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion" and Pink Floyd-esque instrumental "The Wizard Turns On…". By crunchy power-pop groover "The W.A.N.D.", Wayne Coyne reassures us that "We've got the power now".
