If nothing else, Wayne Coyne deserves a lot of credit for not going over old ground. After the release of the fun (but underwhelming) At War With The Mystics, The Flaming Lips spent several years working on their film Christmas on Mars, which was pretty much A Charlie Brown Christmas in space. Whether that is a compliment or an insult depends largely on personal taste. They finally re-emerged last year with Embryonic, a double album full of delightfully odd and at times inaccessible music, at least compared to their most recent output. Now that Wayne's been stripped naked and stuffed inside a big furry vagina ball by dozens of similarly nude fans, where to next? Why, a cover of one of the most beloved albums of all times of course! 

The Dark Side of The Moon is regularly voted one of the greatest albums of all time, although not the best Pink Floyd album, as that honour goes to Wish You Were Here, closely followed by Piper At The Gates of Dawn. With such a high pedigree, you could be forgiven for questioning the validity of the entire exercise. Why tinker with a classic? A look at the accompanying artists is telling. Psych-rock outfits Stardeath and White Dwarfs, both natives of their beloved hometown Oklahoma, join The Flaming Lips. They performed the album together at a special New Years’ Eve concert, and they enjoyed it so much they've taken to devoting to the second half of their live show to it. It you've ever had a special song that you and your friends like to get drunk and sing along to you'll understand the feeling; it's an in-joke that's spiralled way beyond its original purpose. The difference being that Wayne Coyne has Henry Rollins in his phonebook.  

Rollins and The Flaming Lips are an unlikely partnership on paper, but on record it sort of works. He does all the spoken word pieces laid through the album, so if you've ever stopped mid-joint to put the needle back to try and figure out what the hell was said, there'll be a few moments of realisation. This is indicative of their approach to the album, remove a few layers of production, push some things to the front of the recording (like the spoken word bits) and downplay a few others by using sounds so lo-fi they could pass as chip tunes. Incidentally, somebody did a chiptunes cover, which you can listen to here  http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
 

Deviations aside, in the end it doesn't sound that different to the original, which is both a plus and a minus. Coyne's approach seems to work best when the song swings more towards the Flaming Lips style than Pink Floyd, and it's clear he's chosen his favourite moments to deviate the furthest.  The Great Gig In The Sky, which features Peaches on the high notes, is filled with the sort of atonal, distorted wailing and fuzzy bass lines that are unmistakably Flaming Lips, with just the right amount of glockenspiel sprinkled over the top to really pull you in. Any Colour You Like is a straight up, good old fashioned jam with all the drums and oohs and aahs you've come to expect. Brain Damage falls flat, because (rather than in spite of) clever instrumentation. Here the big chorus is so drenched in fuzz that it loses all emotional force, while Money is just as dull and plodding as it's always been.  

Hardcore Lips fans will likely have pulled this off the Internet months ago and so will ignore this official release, while Floyd devotees will probably consider the whole notion sacrilege and will avoid it entirely. To casual fans of either- give it a listen; at times it's a compelling insight into what makes both bands special, for their strengths and their weaknesses. If nothing else, it'll piss off Roger Waters- and that's never a bad thing.

Review Score: 6.5/10