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Rockin' Our Turntable: The Flaming Lips

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 8, 2009 4:20PM

2009_10_flaming_lips_embryonic.jpg We've always been confused by the folks that view The Flaming Lips as some shiny, happy, modern version of up with people. Yes, the strains of "Do You Realize?" are joyous but have the fans that think the band is all about being one big party ever actually listened to the group's lyrics. While the darkness has never left the group's basic aesthetic we believe it's been misconstrued by many and mistaken as a vehicle meant for confetti filled cannons, half-naked dancing aliens, and a white-suited guy wearing a Hulk fist while rolling over the crowd in a giant bubble.

In other words, while we've always respected the band's recorded output, in the last decade it seemed auxiliary to most folks coming instead to see the grown-up freaky circus roll into town. The group's newest album, Embryonic, is going to scare the hell out off that crowd, and we love The Flaming Lips for their willingness to do so.

We've been longing for the band to make an album that sounded like it was developed by an actual band rather than constructed in a studio by a gang of white-coated genius mad scientists. With Embryonic, the group picks up their full range of instruments and gets to jamming in multi-instrumentalist Steve Drozd's unsellable house and creates something that's on surface a deeply weird detour but in fact is an exhilarating step along the path they've always trod.

The primary vibe is that of the eternal jam, but this isn't a groove laid down by hippies. Instead the drum rhythms are menacing and cyclical, allowing The Lips to layer the base with countless level of scratching guitars and the most malevolently fuzzed out basslines you can imagine. Frontman Wayne Coyne has likened some of the material to free jazz freak-outs, and as something like "Aquarius Sabotage" tries to claw and scratch its way out of your headphones you see he wasn't exaggerating. A song like that is immediately followed by the unstoppable thrust of "See the Leaves," a song whose in-the-red volume threatens all audio equipment it escapes through until suddenly trailing off into a dreamy bed of shimmering waves out of the final movement of Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful Of Secrets."

There are no obvious singles, and truth be told few hummable melodies, but we don't see that as a misstep. Instead this is an album to get lost within. Running the length of a prog-rock double album, it's prey to some of the over-indulgences such forays risk, but we're willing to go along for the ride since the band doesn't seem interested in the least in satisfying anyone other than themselves. It's also a logical next step after its predecessor, the more adventurous At War With The Mystics, taking that album's weirder tendencies and allowing them such free reign that they completely consume outside collaborators like Karen O and MGMT.

To us that's the true beauty of Embryonic. Coyne, Drozd, Michael Ivins, and newest member Kliph Scurlock have come together to create something loos, free flowing, adventurous, and deeply satisfying. The sound is meant to suck you in and toss you around its waves before settling you deep within its forward thrust. It's an album built on delirium that works best if you allow its fever dream to totally consume you. It's an album old fans will hail as a welcome step and we hope newer fans allow themselves to be entwined in its obtuse pleasures, allowing everyone to appreciate The Flaming Lips for their musical daring and fearless honesty and commitment to this leg of their decades long vision quest.

Embryonic is out Tuesday, October 13