The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
I haven’t like a Flaming Lips album since the Soft Bulletin. Both Yoshimi and At War with the Mystics were unbelievably grating; the melodies too saccharine, the production too over the top and compressed. I love a band that sounds like they’re just teetering on the edge of chaos and noise, but the Flaming Lips seem to have lost their balance several times now. Mostly, they trigger my gag reflex and they give me a headache.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself loving almost every single track on their new album, The Embryonic.
I haven’t spent enough time with the album to give it a very in-depth review — it’s a double album, after all, and one that demands your full attention — but it seems they’ve done away with trying to convince the world just how happy and beautiful and wonderful everything is. They sound darker here; more drugged out, more drawn out, and more interesting. The Embrionic sounds like a real live band writing real live songs and performing real live jams, instead of the product of far too much studio wankery. They’re as annoyingly over-compressed as always, but with these songs, it works. And the low-key songs are much needed melodic respites in between walls of distorted drum noise and the almost thematic, oddly endearing squelchy synth whines and blasts.
Most impressive is that it kept my attention through the full eighteen tracks. Few bands pace albums like this in this singles-based mp3 music era. Every track is deliberate and nothing is out of place with each song setting up the next, creating something that is truly greater than the sum of it’s parts. And for the first time, I actually believe all the cosmogenic mumbo-jumbo thematics these guys are always spouting. I have absolutely no idea what this album is about having typically ignored the majority of the words (as I tend to do), but it felt like a psychedelic space journey — much more so than their crappy moon movie.
So by all means, grab it and give it a listen, even if you aren’t normally a fan. They turned me on this one, maybe they’ll turn you.
Comments
“The Embrionic sounds like a real live band writing real live songs and performing real live jams, instead of the product of far too much studio wankery.”
I’m waiting patiently for this to turn into a “The Beatles suck” discussion.
Matthew said:
I’m waiting patiently for this to turn into a “The Beatles suck” discussion.
Is that a challenge? Because I think I’ve proven I can do this for just about anything.
Kevin said:They turned me on this one, maybe they’ll turn you.
You’re right. I listened to it, and now I look like this:
why must you continue to use this word “grating” nearly once a day?
are you using it to mean annoying? cos that’s the only alternate meaning that would fit in your context clues that i find. and even then, it’s a very heavy adjective!
Banned Bill said:Kevin said:They turned me on this one, maybe they’ll turn you.
I don’t think I said that.
christina said:why must you continue to use this word “grating” nearly once a day?
are you using it to mean annoying? cos that’s the only alternate meaning that would fit in your context clues that i find. and even then, it’s a very heavy adjective!
No, I mean grating. Like nails on a chalkboard.
Kevin said:haha, dammit. i blame the fact that there’s no quote feature for the original post, so i had to quote something else and change it. and then forgot to change the name. also, let me also complain about how confusing the sea of tags in the quote structure is, especially when you’re used to the simplicity of PHPBB with its [quote][/quote].
I don’t think I said that.
The best part about it is when I read that I really thought “Hmm…I don’t remember saying that.” rather than "Hahaha….he misquoted me with John’s words.