The Flaming Lips

Never ones to hide their freak flag, the Flaming Lips flail it, whip it and sometimes drown under it on their first double disc. An exercise in knob-twiddling, guitar-noodling and vocal-manipulating, Embryonic blurs the line between genius and insanity ever more. Guitars and electronics squeal and flirt amid beatnik musings, mathematician chatter and animal squawks (from Karen O), as heavy bass lines dominate. There is filler, but also a good many gems: "Convinced of the Hex," "Worm Mountain" (with MGMT), "Silver Trembling Hands," "Watching the Planets."

"I wish I could go back in time," Wayne Coyne yelps on the Flaming Lips' 12th record. In a
sense, he has: These psych-rock mystics haven't sounded so off-the-wall since they were
Oklahoma acidheads in the Eighties. Most of Embryonic sounds like laid-back echoes of
Miles Davis' early-1970s skronk jazz, with distorted funk grooves undercutting pillowy
vibraphones and zonked electronics. Despite tons of studio chaff (five songs are... More >