Black Lips

Arabia Mountain (Vice)

Over the past decade, Black Lips has gleefully scrawled squalor across the walls of garage punk, shooting fast and loose in the face of expectations. The Atlanta quartet’s teaming with überproducer Mark Ronson for its sixth studio outing thus works its own twisted logic. Ronson reins in the raucousness without curbing the catharsis – on 16 tracks that blast newly crisp but equally irreverent. Opener “Family Tree” howls menacingly into the punchy, saw-salved “Modern Art,” with the Lips’ 1960s psych-pop still slicing into Ramones-esque punk and bluesier Stones. (Sun., 7:50pm, Black stage)

***.5

This article appears in November 4 • 2011.

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Doug Freeman has been writing for the Austin Chronicle since 2007, covering the arts and music scene in the city. He is originally from Virginia and earned his Masters Degree from the University of Texas. He is also co-editor of The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology, published by UT Press.