The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

The opening track off Embryonic is a relief, if only because it’s nothing like the Flaming Lips’ last album opener, “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” Instead of a grating ploy for commercial radio, “Convinced of the Hex” introduces Embryonic as a throwback to the fuzzy, blissed-out jams championed by a series of great and prolific ’90s bands, including the Lips themselves. 

That the ’90s can now sound retro is a nice surprise in itself, and the change is a smart stylistic departure for a band that could have easily continued to please crowds with a la mode electro-pop (never mind that MGMT and Karen O have guest appearances). Instead, Embryonic sets its sights beyond the high-production pizzazz of their last great record, 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, drawing more from the psychedelic material of their pre-millennial albums.

As usual, Coyne’s lyricism runs the gamut of fantastic non-sequiturs before ultimately arriving at moments of clarity—a lyricism that sometimes transcends words, like on the gigantic instrumental track “Aquarius Sabotage.” The music parallels the songwriting and enhances its levity. Instrumental plateaus and lyrical epiphaines emerge from raucous choruses of affected guitar and vocal overdubs. Though a good amount of editing (especially in the latter half) could have made this album more consistently brilliant, that would have been beside the point for a work of this scope, reaching for greatness beyond the sum of its individual parts. It’s surely no “concept album,” but it is spectacle. Embryonic is a Hail Mary pass of high art ambitions—a double album best listened to on quality headphones, at a time when fuzzy 30-second YouTube clips seem to satisfy most. 

Heading into the ’10s, it’s something of a relief that venerable indie rock veterans carrying the weight of such artistic integrity may have crafted the last essential album of the decade.