Black Lips

Add Date: May 31 

Artist: Black Lips 

Album: Arabia Mountain 

Label: Vice 

Genre: Garage rock 

Comments: On the surface, it sounds like an unlikely collaboration: the raw, sometimes messy garage rock band Black Lips teaming up with superproducer Mark Ronson. And the Ronson work that got the Lips' attention? None other than Amy Winehouse's 2006 breakthrough Back to Black. As frontman Cole Alexander explains: "When that came out, we thought, for mainstream pop, this has a cool retro sensibility that we appreciate. We knew he had the potential to get an older sound. We're not purists who just want to sound old, but there are certain recording techniques that we used a long time ago that sound really good, and can be used in today's context. We felt he understood that."

Arabia Mountain is the result. It seems to me that Ronson fine-tuned the Black Lips' sound without really getting in the way, which is what you might expect from a savvy producer working with a veteran band. (Though their eponymous debut LP came out only in 2003, this is the Lips' sixth studio record.) And speaking of veteran, the maturation of the Black Lips' sound is noticeable; though there's still a great deal of energy, the album has less of a punk bent, with their classic blues and soul influences shining through instead.

Overall, a solid effort from a great band. Spin tracks 1, 2, 13, 7 and 9.