Black Lips are savvy motherfuckers, ostensibly building a successful career by playing '60s and punk-inspired, lo-fi garage rock (or, what they call "flower punk") that isn't better or worse than the inoffensive garage rock (not called "flower punk") made by a zillion other bands. They mix in some lite elements of Southern soul and rap (take a listen to "The Drop I Hold") here/there, but you can dig into Estrus, Crypt, In the Red (Black Lips old label home), Get Hip!, Bomp (BL's other past label), etc., and find plenty of analogous acts. (To look backwards, their sound hits on the Vagrants, A-Bones, the Fleshtones, etc.) Yes, the Atlanta crew know how to write catchy, interestingly textured songs, but it's still surprising what an image can do, landing the ragtag rockers on Conan, their music on Dirty Sexy Money, and their itineraries booked the world over on various festival circuits, while their sonic brethren still play in, well, garages. (It's also impressive they got chased out of India just in time to promote their fifth studio album, 200 Million Thousand.) There's gotta me more than just pissing in each other's mouths selling these records, right? After all, G.G. Alllin, the Mentors, Slogun, and etc., never had this sort of "luck." 200 Million Thousand answers this with a "yes," but maybe not for the reason's you'd expect.Continue reading Premature Evaluation: Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand...