Flaming Lips
Embryonic

[WEA/Reprise; 2009]

Initial Impression

It’s definitely not the type of Flaming Lips album we’ve come to know as of late. The last few albums can be described as easy, charming and accessible to old and new fans alike. One of the characteristics of the last two albums in particular; Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and At War with the Mystics is that they featured iconic tracks that represented those albums. “Do You Realize??” and the “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” anchor those albums respectively and I was surprised to not find those types of tracks on Embryonic. Instead this album challenged me to listen a bit deeper and I’m excited to say that I wasn’t disappointed.

Ambitious

The tracks vary creatively in pace, direction, message and mood but they are pulled together in the end by a unifying small studio sound with an overall acid-rock tone. All done I might add with a sprinkling of classic Flaming Lips enthusiasm and humor. I think Lips enthusiasts won’t get too lost as every time they get a bit too abstract, Wayne Coyne brings you back to the Lipsiverse with his familiar crooning.

Fuzzy sounding vocals and dreamy guitars dominate a lot of the tracks but I find that they work in keeping with the overall tone of this album. It feels as though a lot of the tracks sound like they’re trying to break from from a certain sound however (but they never do), and so it has a sprawling quality to it that keeps the overall tension high. Some have called Embryonic “dark” but I think it is merely perceived that way as it is not clearly inspirational and bright as some of their previous efforts.

Interpreting this album will be an intriguing and fun task for listeners as it definitely feels like it’s daring you to try to make sense of it. They’re mature and experienced enough that they are capable of pulling the creatively adventuresome Embryonic off whereas others might fall flat on their face.

Conflicted

Having attended a Flaming Lips performance this year, I kind of got the feeling that they were getting a bit bored of their crowd-pleasing on-stage persona and recent pattern of successful singles (that inevitably their fans never get tired of listening to). So at the end of the day, this album must feel very liberating to them and an interesting experience for us that may or may not be welcomed. Depending on which type of Lips fare you cherish most — the avant-guard experimental stuff or the spiffy inspirational single — Embryonic would probably most satisfy the former.

— Jack Tse