It's been an interesting decade for the Flaming Lips. Especially considering they peaked commercially in the mid-90's with "She Don't Use Jelly" and peaked artistically in 1999 with the Soft Bulletin, which turned out to be one of the touchstones of indie rock music this decade (even though it was released on Warner Bros.). They took a dive into electronic music and made another masterpiece, Yoshimi Battle's The Pink Robots, before trying to make a perfectly balanced Lips record that would satisfy everybody. The result was At War With The Mystics - a disappointment that showed why they should never try to do anything conventional.
About ten seconds into their new record, Embryonic, all of this becomes unimportant. This album is so different and so unexplainable that any track from it wouldn't fit on any of these other records. "Convinced Of The Hex" starts off with nonrhythmic loud guitar jabs that sound like a band messing around in the studio - a huge departure from the layered production and perfected accuracy of their past three records. The track that follows sounds like 70's psychedelic funk in fast-forward. The second track gets even weirder - "The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine" lets us imagine a collaboration between John Lennon and Joy Division. Wayne sings "What does it mean to dream what you dream" and I'm already dreaming about the possibilities of what the next 16 tracks on this record could contain.
"Evil" is a dark mood piece featuring some of Wayne's best vocals (his singing seems to get better and more versatile every album). After that, things get loud again - "See The Leaves" has a fun bouncing bass rhythm with guitars and drums crashing around it before the song stops and rebuilds around creeping keyboards.
This is an album where every track is a highlight, but every track relies on each other. "I Can Be A Frog" is a playful joke that features Karen O making animal noises - it's not going to be a single, but it works perfectly in the context of the album. "Worm Mountain" proves that no matter how experimental they get, they are always a rock band first. The buzzing bass and driving drums would fit onto a Led Zeppelin album, but the ringing electric pianos come from Miles Davis' acid jazz era. However, the orchestral space-out at the end is pure Lips.
Seventy minutes and not a wasted second, Embryonic is the Flaming Lips best record since the Soft Bulletin (and even then, it's close). If you mixed Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti with Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Pink Floyd's Animals then threw in the reckless playfulness of Captain Beefhart's Trout Mask Replica, you would be close to this.
And this was released on Warner Bros.? In 2009? Really?
This is too good to be true.
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