Flaming Lips Bolster ‘At War’ For 20th Anniversary

The Flaming Lips are going back to war. The band has announced a deluxe 20th anniversary edition of At War With the Mystics, arriving Nov. 13 via Rhino/Warner Records. The six-disc set expands the 2006 album with 19 previously unreleased demos, rarities, alternate versions, B-sides, soundtrack material, radio sessions, live recordings, covers and other music from the era.

At War With the Mystics followed the extraordinary success of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and found the Oklahoma band continuing to stretch its psychedelic pop vocabulary. The album folded electronic textures, orchestral flourishes, studio experimentation and huge melodies into songs that wrestled with politics, mortality, love, fear and the strange business of being alive.

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SPIN’s original 2006 review found a record that was “gnarlier and a bit less tuneful” than the prior two albums, while emphasizing the intricacy of its arrangements and the strange sonic world created by producer Dave Fridmann. “It’s more concerned with what happens in the head than in the streets,” writer Will Hermes noted. “The money shot is the ecstatically strange ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’ — not a Karen O tribute (I don’t think), but a hand-clapping, munchkin-chanting, Peter Frampton talk-box-rocking Roman candle that wonders how absolutely corrupt anyone with absolute power would be, even you.”

At the center of the upcoming collection are 14 previously unreleased studio recordings and 42 additional non-album tracks, plus two 2006 Flaming Lips concerts: U.F.O.s at the Zoo and Live at the Hollywood Bowl. The first preview is “The Sound of Failure (2 Demos),” which is out now. As with the Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots anniversary box, the physical editions take different approaches to the material. The complete collection appearing on CD will subsequently be made available across vinyl releases.

Despite being down to lone original member Wayne Coyne following the surprising December 2025 departure of Steven Drozd, the Lips remain active on the road. Their 2026 calendar will wind down Nov. 28 at the Tecate Comuna festival in Cholula, Mexico.

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