Black Lips' Arabia Mountain reaches a new peak

"New Direction"

"Modern Art"
The Black Lips’ sixth proper album, Arabia Mountain opens with “Family Tree,” a ramped up, straight-ahead rocker that jolts to life unexpectedly. The song opens the record with a feeling not unlike turning the channel to CNN to find a car chase already in progress, and that’s kind of the point. Knocking the ears and the brain out of alignment is a necessary primer here as the group lays the foundation for some serious change. From the beginning it’s obvious that Arabia Mountain is a clean and professionally assembled record — a tidbit of information that’s been pounded into the collective subconscious of the Western world since news spread that producer Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse) was at the helm. But upon arrival, improved production is only part of what makes Arabia Mountain such a milestone for ATL’s original garage punk innovators and survivors.

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Of course Ronson deserves a lion’s share of credit for this one. But the songs themselves show the group stepping up their game, and reaching for a higher standard.

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There’s an element of song craft present here that takes hold in “Modern Art,” “Mad Dog” and the Lockett Pundt-produced "Bicentennial Man" and "Go Out and Get It" that transcends the prior sense of primitivism that defined the group in the past.