Arabia Mountain (Vice)
Release date: June 7

The Skinny: Black Lips swaggered out of the same Atlanta rock scene as Deerhunter and, similarly, have parlayed hard-won underground cred into status approaching something much bigger. Stated influences for their sixth album, Arabia Mountain, include the ever-raw and ready Stooges classic Fun House, but then, they also worked with Mark Ronson, a vaunted producer who's commanded way more highly appointed projects by the likes of Amy Winehouse, Christina Aguilera, and Lily Allen (plus Ghostface Killah!). Recording sessions for the album -- whose title owes to a geologically odd mountain of rock outside Atlanta -- reportedly included use of a microphone jammed into a human skull, so no worries to those concerned that Black Lips might have cleaned up too much.

Fast Fact: In a story ready for the annals of rock history, Black Lips recently came out with news that Ronson almost died during the making of the new record, after they all got food poisoning from raw liver eaten with a mind to get inspired for a song called "Raw Meat." From Ronson himself, to the NME: "I was diagnosed with something with a lot of syllables in it. I almost died. But I don't think it was intentional on their part."

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