The Flaming Lips “Embryonic” Review

To say that the Flaming Lips have gotten weird again on their 12th full-length studio record Embryonic would be completely erroneous; the Flaming Lips have always been weird. But this new double-album of theirs (it was conceived as a 2-disc set, even though the commercial release is a single disc) is certainly a return to their more experimental and unpredictable roots after 2006′s rather lackluster and lifeless At War With The Mystics. And even though the new record is filled with some over-indulgent missteps, it still has an urgency and an exuberance to it that was lacking a bit on Mystics, and represents a strong return to form for a band that has now been making music together for over 26 years.

The album certainly bursts out of the gate strong, with the psychedelic sprawl of “Convinced Of The Hex,” built upon the steady, hypnotic bass line of Michael Ivins, which allows Steven Drozd to fill in guitars and effects wherever he sees fit (which is everywhere at times), while drummer Kliph Scurlock’s roiling drum fills echo vigorously in the mix. But the focus of the song is placed squarely on the menacing vocals of Wayne Coyne, who seems to do away with the flights of fancy lyrics featured on the Lips’ past two records in favor of darker, more ominous themes that are threaded throughout the album. “The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine” is a pure sci-fi freakout, with the propulsive rhythm section guiding the band through the sea of discord and paranoia that layers endlessly over the track along with Coyne’s haunting, double-tracked vocals. The track that casual Lips fans will certainly gravitate towards is “Evil,” the slow burning ballad that again reinforces the distance between Coyne’s flowery optimism featured on “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and his wistful, desolate vocals found here. It’s a melancholy look back at a past we can’t possibly change, and how we can assuage ourselves to cope with that knowledge.

“Aquarius Sabotage” jolts the listener out of whatever meditative state they were lulled in to by “Evil,” and hearkens back to the sonic mayhem found on Telepathic Surgery, but ultimately the track serves as an extended intro to the expansive, dark grooves of “See The Leaves,” which continues the dire, threatening sound the band has tapped into on this record. The German mathematician Dr. Thorsten Wörmann is featured (that would seem strange on any album other than one by the Lips) on the spacey “Gemini Syringes,” which begins a bit of a stylistic deceleration on the record, with the next few songs growing more expansive and relaxed, forming a seamless, leisurely transition from the first album to the second.

“The Ego’s Last Stand” takes a while to get the record’s second half going, with Ivins’ mesmerizing bass again lulling the listener into a false sense of security, before the cacophony erupts mid-song, led by Drozd’s atonal guitar. The long coda featured on the track quashes a bit of the momentum built up by the song, and segues into the goofy nonsense of “I Can Be A Frog,” which features animal noises (and plenty of laughter) from Karen O. I certainly hoped, upon first hearing of this potential collaboration, that the guest appearance of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s lead singer would’ve produced something a bit more memorable, but alas, the track ends up being a throwaway, ridiculous song that could only really fit on a double-album. After the interminable, spoken word drone of “Sagittarius Silver Announcement” (with vocals that sound oddly like Moby’s), the band gets things going in the right direction again with the help of MGMT on the fuzzed out funk of “Worm Mountain.” It’s such strong, sprawling songs as this that make Embryonic a real success, and allows the listener to forgive the sonic gluttony featured on a few of these tracks. For what would a double-album be without a little overindulgence, right? (I guess it would be a tightly wound, killer single album-but that’s beside the point.) But the hypnotic groove of “Worm Mountain” finds the band exploring the boundaries of sound while still maintaining a solid sense of song as well.

“Scorpio Sword” is another introductory piece, meant to form a dreamy segue into the ruminative, down-tempo “The Impulse,” which itself serves as a lengthy lead-in to the propulsive rhythms of “Silver Trembling Hands.” This is the Lips at their best, building tension and edginess as the track progresses within a melody that lingers just below the surface, before releasing that anxiety in a euphoric chorus that gives the listener the sense that everything is going to be all right, at least while “she’s high.” Dr. Thorsten Wörmann turns up again in another brief sonic detour, the spatial “Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast,” which serves, like the other diversions, as a bit of a commercial break (hinted at with the title) amidst the musical chaos found on much of the rest of the record.

The record closes with perhaps the best song the Lips have done for years, “Watching The Planets.” It’s a forceful, spirited romp, complete with Coyne’s plaintive, repetitive propaganda, and forms an overt call to arms in which there really is no answer but the question itself. Throughout Embryonic, the Flaming Lips don’t ever quite lose the plot (but they come perilously close), proving that even when they’re leading us into the heart of their often convoluted story, we will trust them enough to listen, and follow dutifully along wherever they decide to take us sonically. And that futuristic guidance and playful inventiveness is what we’ve come to expect from the Flaming Lips, and thankfully they deliver here on a triumphant album that represents a reawakening that’s been a long time in the making.

Also: The Flaming Lips perform on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic