REVIEW: The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

PROS: effectively experimental | change in pace

CONS: Karen O can be a frog

Soon after “Do You Realize” was named “Oklahoma’s state rock song” The Flaming Lips must have grew tired of pleasing the masses.  On the latest album, this psychedelic pop has degenerated into a crunchy nonsensical pile of sound.  I mean that in the best way.  Embryonic is an ingenious layering of textures through which lead singer, Wayne Coyne, leads us on a sort of psychedelic journey.  While the lyrics and compositional aspects of the music are by no means spectacular, it is their presentation that is spot on.  The thought that most frequently crosses my mind when I listen to Embryonic I bet the studio is a mess…I mean absolutely trashed.  By the sound of this music, it seems like Coyne is just walking around smashing on objects lying around the room and pushing buttons on synthesizers with no particular method to the madness.  But then you realize, in the midst of all this noise, a very careful bass line is emerging.  And then if you can sift through all the crunching and crashing you will realize that these sounds have quickly evolved into drumbeats.  Still drenched in overdrive, distortion and the like, the first track “Convinced of the Hex” rises from the sound.

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