Those steeped in Lips lore will tell you that The Soft Bulletin is the record which saved the band as an ongoing concern: under pressure from their label and rejecting the garage rock of their early career, the band hunkered down and without really knowing how made something wonderful.
The Soft Bulletin is now widely regarded as one of the 90’s greatest albums, which given the nature of the music industry made it equally as likely to get the reissue treatment, but as ever for an outfit with Wayne Coyne at the helm, things are a little different.
Firstly, this spectacle was recorded in 2017, which makes the anniversary timing of it’s release lucky, coincidental or both, but joined by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, it’s a retread way beyond the standard drill of throw some old demos on the fire and see how it burns.
Rather than drown songs classics like Race For The Prize, The Spiderbite Song and Waiting For A Superman, the triumphant strings instead turn them into what they might have been had there been more than a shoestring budget to record the original versions on: Coyne’s voice is also mercifully untreated and unorthodox, all adding up to a package that, newly interpreted, is as unconventionally mind blowing as the original.
You can read the full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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