Two Geeks Three Cats

My opinions of the album-long cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon by the Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs (with special guests Henry Rollins and Peaches) continue below, song by song:

"Money" - The classic-rock-standard intro of cash register whirrs and chings of change in 7/8 time has been replaced here by an electronic buzz like my old modem used to make. Are the Lips making a subtle comment here about how credit cards and numbers in computer systems have replaced cash and coin? I hope so. The song itself is slower and more electronic than the original, and Wayne Coyne sings in a slightly sleazy digitized Zappa-esque whisper (is that a Vocoder?) that could not be more unlike David Gilmour's slick fat-cat croon. There's a also a fuzzy, distorted but appealing homage to Gilmour's guitar solo, but no saxophone.

"Us and Them" - Musically, this is another trip into vaguely Yoshimi territory, and that's not a bad thing. Coyne's nearly unprocessed vocals make this sound almost like it could be a demo version recorded by the Floyd in 1972. The notes of the sax solo in the original are appropriated, chopped up and rearranged into a really nice guitar solo here. There's nothing wrong with the track, but I miss the wall of sound from the original. Unfortunately, Rollins cheapens the proceedings again with voiceover deliveries that sound like he's reading straight from a page he hasn't seen before. Really, guys, couldn't you have given Henry the script ahead of time?

"Any Colour You Like" - Oh. My. God. The original was funky, but not like this. Kudos to the Lips for finding a common thread between Roger Waters' bass groove from this song and the breakdown in "Echoes" (from Floyd's 1971 Meddle) and presenting us with something that sounds like the best of both. I didn't know Michael Ivins could play like this.

"Brain Damage" - I need to give props to Lips multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd here, because I haven't yet. I can only imagine he is the reason this song sounds as cool as it does. The minimalist guitar work of the original is replaced here by organs and theremins in near-harmony, with a couple of fuzzy guitars - one sounding remarkably like it's played by long-departed Lips guitarist Ronald Jones - weaving in and out throughout. Rollins finally earns his keep as the cackling lunatic. I'm not sure if Coyne is on lead vocals here, because it doesn't sound like him. I'd like to find out.

"Eclipse" - I don't dislike this, but it fails to provide the epic climax to the piece that the original did. It's not bad, starting off with rocking guitars, making me expect a final track with a kick, a final burst of glory, an anthem for the ages like "The W.A.N.D." from At War With the Mystics. Instead, it left me a little cold.

The heartbeat comes in again at the end, making me think of Tull once more, before Rollins gives a self-aware, 10th-grade-Shakespeare recitation of the iconic final line: "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark."

God damn you, Henry.