AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE

“I don’t know if this album is prog rock, but it’s certainly in a classic rock style that could easily be considered prog, you know?”

Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne is on the phone from a car outside his Oklahoma City home, discussing with Prog where his group’s current album, American Head, fits into the musical landscape. If ever there was a band that made up their own rules, genres and stylistic templates, it’s the shape-shifting, psychedelically charged mavericks he’s fronted through countless experiments, detours, collaborations and reinventions since 1983.

One thing that does have that readers will instinctively understand is an overarching concept, or at the very least a strong thematic basis knitting its 13 tracks together. And happily, it comes wrapped in some of the strongest, most evocative songs the band have written in years.