The Flaming Lips – Fight Test EP
(Warner)

After a critically acclaimed album and a groundbreaking tour as the opening/backing band for Beck, the Flaming Lips are in a lot of peoples minds, cd players, and top ten lists. As a follow up to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the Lips have released an EP/Single for the song Fight Test. This is more than just a money making cd single, it’s a collection of rare cover songs, a remix of the single Do You Realize?, and two new songs! Not to mention there’s a multimedia section on the cd including a video for Fight Test and a trailer for the upcoming Flaming Lips movie, Christmas On Mars.

The stand out track on the album would probably be the cover of Beck’s “The Golden Age”. This song was one of the few highlights of Sea Change, and is even better with the Lips lo-fi twist. The other two covers include a slower, epic rendition of Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” and Radiohead’s “Knives Out”. The two new songs featured on the cd are the electro-heavy “The Strange Design of Conscience” and the bluesy “Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me), dedicated of course to Jack White of the White Stripes. Both songs are pretty good, however “Thank You Jack White” is a seemingly borderline novelty song. The remix of Do You Realize?? is a little less than expected. It’s pretty beat heavy and just uses cheap tricks to rearrange a song that was fine to begin with.

Finally the multimedia section of the cd is an added bonus. The video for Fight Test is pretty good, and the trailer for Christmas On Mars leaves me with many unanswered questions. Including “Was that the guy from Blues Clues?” The movie is suppose to come out next Christmas for those interested. Overall, this cd is sort of all over the place, but that’s okay because everything included on it is a bonus to what could’ve been a typically boring cd single that only a collector would want. — Jay C.

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