Huh, I can’t say I ever followed that band but I didn’t realise the main guy died. Of a heart attack at age 53? Oddly old-fashioned way to die, somehow. Feels like a cause of death for hard drinking mid-20th century movie stars, rather than hipster musicians.

In fact I knew even less about this band than I thought, because I’m very surprised they only had two albums before now, both released in the 90s. I was thinking they were part of the 00s pitchfork indie scene. I guess it’s like Neutral Milk Hotel where they influenced that scene so much they might as well have been a 00s act.

The new Lips material shows they can still sound like Drozd-era Lips, even some of the chord choices feel similar. Which I guess raises the question of whether that’s the rest of the band imitating Drozd, or maybe Drozd wasn’t quite as fundamental to their songwriting as people tended to assume?

There’s another song they’ve played live which is a similarly pleasant, though not especially memorable ballad:

I liked American Head okay but I didn’t particularly consider them to be on a hot streak of creativity for Drozd’s last decade or so with the band, so I’ll keep an open mind with this new stuff.

Also mildly notable that they’re not on Warner Bros anymore, for the first time in about 35 years.