With Black Lips it’s always been about the “concept.” The country album (Sing in a World That’s Falling Apart), the kaleidoscopic and deranged one (Satan’s Graffiti or God’s Art?), the more polished but still crooked pop outing (Apocalypse Love). Each chapter arrived with its own frame, a stylistic detour, a new disguise. And now, with Season of the Peach, the band waves the flag of a return to their roots: analog, wild, dirty.
But listen closely to those roots. In the beginning, the Lips were bastard children of Butthole Surfers and the Cramps, radical garage-punk, filthy and unsettling. Outsider rock that smelled of basements and fake blood, music that snarled instead of winking. What we get here is something else entirely: a patchwork that plays like a remix of their last few records. Tippy Tongue toys with girl-group nostalgia filtered through glam; Kassandra dives into psych spirals with a Zappa aftertaste; Zulu Saints is yet another crooked honky tonk shuffle. More compendium than reboot.
The problem is that the old madness is gone. What remains is craft, craft, and more craft. The album sounds good, the songs hold up, but that dangerous spark never comes back. It’s as if the band have turned into their own cover act, repeating moves they know by heart.
Not a disaster, of course: Black Lips are still seductive in their imperfection. But if this was supposed to be the grand return to the dust and chaos of their beginnings, it feels more like a review session than a rebirth. The chaos here is catalogued, and the ferocity — the real one — remains a memory.