Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Coo: Black Lips, '200 Million Thousand'

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BEING A SELF-DESCRIBED "flower punk" band, you'd expect the Black Lips to sound like The Ramones doing "Age of Aquarius," but that couldn't be further from reality. Much more garage than punk, the four-piece group from Atlanta has always been intense and — above all — best heard at top volume.

On their fifth studio album, "200 Million Thousand" (Vice), the Black Lips smudge the cleaner but more modern lines of 2007's "Good Bad Not Evil" and give in more fully to their obvious rock influences, laying on the fuzz, the melody and the general unrest of turbulent times past. In fact, ample melodies are crammed in, leaving little room for anything else, but they come in a different shape than fans might be used to — the intricacies and hidden pockets of technical mastery make it almost a crime not to listen to the album on vinyl.

"200 Million Thousand" starts off with a meticulously frantic "Take My Heart," plucked from the heyday of '60s blues-rock, then morphs into "Drugs," the soundtrack to a sock hop on, well, drugs. The slurred, sluggish but sweet "Starting Over" almost makes you wish no one had invented lyrics Web sites, so you'd be forced to replay it over and over just to figure out what they hell they're singing. "Let It Grow" is more psychedelic, while Kinks-inspired riffs rule in "Body Combat." Fans might be curious see how the well-crafted tracks transfer to a live performance, since the band no doubt has something in mind — the Black Lips' stage performances rarely disappoint.

One major shortfall of the album is just its title — if the Black Lips are going to recall the 1960s with such intensity, why not go all in with a nonsensical name like "Surrealistic Pillow" or "Electric Ladyland" or "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"? The minor lapses in creativity on "200 Million Thousand" are obvious in more than a few places — it recalls turbulence and rebellion but from the safety of its own generation, packing much less of a punch than it might have a few decades ago.

But luckily, the tracks survive on their own merits. You can spend the duration of the album picking out the individual and prominent influences, from The Rolling Stones to The Pixies, and but it's more interesting to think of "200 Million" as a celebration of the history of rock 'n' roll, even if it's occasionally more imitative than it is inspired. If nothing else, intense albums like this should provoke fans of cutesy pop music (looking at you, Vampire Weekend) into rediscovering how awesome rock sounds when you really crank it up.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Gentleman Jesse and His Men and Suns of Funs, Thu., March 5, 8 p.m., $15; 202-667-4490. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Afton Lorraine Woodward

» Stream the whole album here.

Photo courtesy Vice Records