decade's best #22

22. The Flaming Lips
Embryonic [Warner, 2009]
One or two things we know about The Flaming Lips’ twelfth studio album Embryonic. Its 18 songs offer a marked departure from the symphonic pop of their last few albums, favoring a more aggressive, full-frontal acid-rock direction that is surprising and yet somehow retains the congruence of the veteran band’s original vision. Sonically, the epic album also leverages Wayne Coyne’s darkest impulses to the point of sublimation, as sinisterly-lit songs like “Powerless” and “Evil” make the most of a newly forged sound. It is the sprawling sound of The Flaming Lips surrendering to Dionysian urges, as deep rattling grooves and dense keyboard atmospherics provide the backdrop for Coyne to revel in his most formidable, paranoia-infused prophecies. The strange disorienting beauty of Embryonic is not only a return to form for the band – it is clearly a career highlight for these fearless freaks.

waking up on gilded splinters

What is this squall of psychedelic horseshit? With their latest Embryonic that sounds unlike anything they have done thus far in their decades-old careering, the Flaming Lips have delivered a phenomenal double-LP that celebrates, aggressively, their deepest acid-rock indulgences. A sprawl of incalculable influence of fucked-up masterpieces like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Dr John’s Gris-Gris and Can’s Future Days are all over these epic Embryonic songs – fans of the more polished craftsmanship of past Flaming Lips albums like 1999’s The Soft Bulletin may well be disappointed, but what the hell. I haven’t bothered to make much sense of the inventory of warmed inventions Wayne Coyne is singing about on this record (mostly a whole lotta paranoia, bad vibes and meddlesome mysteries, it seems) but it all comes together so incredibly well; overwrought, druggy pop songs that sound so weird, disorienting and beautiful.