Flame On
The Flaming Lips' Embryonic
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At some point over the course of the last 10 years, the Flaming Lips went from being weird to being Weird. There's a difference — weird is writing spaced-out psych jams with no borders or discernible hooks, Weird is writing those same songs for grade-schoolers; weird is "Jesus Shooting Heroin," Weird is a cadre of worked-up furries onstage and a $5,000 confetti budget.
The Lips' last two execrable records took out a trademark on Weird, excelling at a kind of goofy, benign bizarreness that covered any interesting ideas with a blanket of bright orange shtick. They'd made such a backbreaking business of fun that their manic stage shows had gone from thrilling spectacle to the kind of badly dated circus where all of the animals have sad, tired looks in their eyes.
Which is part of what makes Embryonic such a surprising, giddy rush. Small-w weird in the best possible sense, the record cranks back the clock hands a full two decades, reveling in the kind of "whatever the fuck we want" experimentalism it seemed the Lips long ago shucked. "See the leaves?" moans Wayne Coyne, his voice a full octave lower than his usual parched soprano croak. "They're dying again." That could be the record's statement of theme. Embryonic exists in a world where everything gold has gone. There's barely a pause between its 18 eerie, mournful songs, making it feel more like a concentrated science fiction set piece than a pop record. There are no clear choruses, no concrete structures — instead, the songs melt from one wavy surrealist backdrop to another. The splendid "Sagittarius Silver Announcement" is a bass line, LSD vocal harmonies and ... that's it. "Aquarius Sabotage" is total sonic chaos, a rampaging guitar part, cataclysmic drums and awful crashing pixie dust wind chimes. It's such a lunatic, frequently terrifying plunge you can almost forgive the fact that it doesn't quite cohere. After a decade of Day-Glo, the Flaming Lips have — with one rude, violent gesture — shot out the lights. If they get lost down a few dark alleys along the way, it's hard to begrudge them.
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