If you think I'm going to declare this album to be the year's best--you're dang tootin' I am. With Yoshimi, the Flaming Lips have given us a big, hot, passionate kiss of an album. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is sort of a tongue-in-cheek/sincere tribute to the animated heroines of the day (sort of an oriental Lara Croft one would guess). Though it's not technically a concept-album, it flows together musically like one and is rife with magic and whimsy. This record is a challenge for anyone's stereo system--bringing down a dump-truck load of gut-wrenching drums and thunderously articulate bass-lines that aim just below your sub-woofers. If you're not familiar with them, think Neil Young fronting Fragile era Yes, with a hearty tip of the hat to art-rock pioneers from early-Genesis to Vangelis.

The album opens with "Fight Test" a song that echoes Cat Steven's "Father and Son" and packs such a killer hook that it wouldn't need lyrics--but it starts off with the line, "thought I was smart, thought I was right, I thought it better not to fight--I thought there was a virtue in always being cool." The album just keeps getting better and there certainly is a virtue in how cool it is. Yoshimi literally bristles with genius and you could certainly make a case that this release is better if not the best album since O.K. Computer. It's only competition for this honor is their last album Soft Bulletin. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Flaming Lips is they're not British, they're all American. Long live the Lips.