The term flower punk pretty much hasn’t been used since the ‘60s, and even then it wasn’t taken as seriously as the hard ‘rock n roll’ acts breaking through.

It was seen as a phase that would be outgrown by the powerfully hallucinating hippy generation. But perhaps the Black Lips wish to push it a bit further.

Veni Vidi Vici is like nothing you have or will hear this side of the 21st century. It’s mesmerising, groovy (has to be said) music that you almost can’t take seriously. But maybe that’s what Black Lips want. They are doing their own thing on their own terms regardless of commercial success, which you have to respect.

The music is truly reminiscent of something from the flower power era. When music was born, shaped and defined to one degree or another. It’s got a playful drum and xylophone combination fused with drudging guitars that drag along with their own notes as if the guitar’s saying “I just don’t care”. 

Mix it all together with vocals that sound as if they’re going through a tunnel of memorisation and hallucination, sparred by a love of anything and everything. Strangely though, after a few listens it really hits you and catches you.

It’s psychedelic rock at it’s best. It has no meaning, no destination but it’s just there for us to listen and try and interpret. It would be hard for this band to find commercial success amongst the entire mainstream acts coming through the British and American musical gates at the minute.

They just don’t fit in. But then that’s the point. It’s on its own level and somehow finds its own notes, own rhythm and doesn’t care what anyone else is doing. And you can’t knock a band with that sort of attitude and vision.