Embryonic

I'm an old dude. Pushing 60. Spent my formative musical years in the 60's and 70's, a huge fan of groups like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, King Crimson, Yes, Traffic, Genesis, Roxy Music/Eno and more obscure groups like Gong, Camel, White Noise, Gang of Four and Le Orme. I wanted to present that perspective so you get where I'm coming from before saying I think Embryonic is a masterwork that stands up to the efforts of those vets who knew how to blend music, sound and noise into a sonic landscape that takes the listener on wonderful journeys.

Believe me, I understand that this is not everyone's cup of tea. It was never intended to be. I get it why some people might actually hate it, just like I used to get crinkled faces and jeers when I put on In the Court of the Crimson King or Topographic Oceans. But to the audience who enjoys more adventuresome opuses, who have the patience and desire to sit back, listen intently from beginning to end and just let the fun happen, this is one of the freshest, most original albums I have heard in years. Perhaps my favorite for all of 2009.

"Embryonic" is the sound of the Flaming Lips returning to what garnered them fame in the first place. I have always respected the Flaming Lips for dedicating themselves to exploring sound at the detriment of everything else, even it means making a song that is downright difficult to listen to. It's not about doing what's safe for the Lips, it's about shaking things up.
Their last album troubled me because it seemed that the Lips couldn't figure out what direction they wanted to take, so they ended up releasing "Yoshimi-Part Two". "At War With The Mystics" was interesting, but not conducive to their talents. "Embryonic" gleefully breaks off that path of sameness and poppy tunes with a very sparse, dark sounding record that works fantastically.
Those of you who love Can will find many reasons to welcome this album to your heart. From beginning to end "Embryonic" is a relentless, percussive affair while injecting strange guitar interruptions and sudden keyboard stabs that are as fresh as they are unsettling. Even Wayne Coyne is summoning the spirit of Damo Suzuki with his unintelligible ranting and yelling while the groove behind him keeps chugging away into unknown territory. It's a slightly primal affair in its simplicity, but Coyne pushes it farther out into space with his bizarre vocal trickery. The music wants to find space to breath, but Coyne simply won't let it as he constantly is at odds with the idea of giving the listener any sense of normalcy. It's this constant push and pull that makes this album such a damn interesting listen.
There really aren't any standout tracks on "Embryonic". The album definitely reeks of "concept" as all of the tracks flow into one another, yet Coyne's lyrics seemingly don't have much meaning which makes it all the more mysterious. Every song on this album is strong except "I Can Be A Frog" which brings the proceedings to a screeching halt. Coyne thought it would be a good idea to get cute and play one of his little nursery rhyme games right in the middle of the album and it doesn't even come close to working. It's too bad they had to include this track as it undermines what is great about the rest of the album. Thankfully the track is only two minutes long, so the album picks back up after this brief interruption.
"Embryonic" ranks right up there with "Soft Bulletin". Rarely do I have such a strong positive reaction to an album but "Embryonic" has a lot of power and soul to explore. It isn't tuneful and precious like "Soft Bulletin" is, but it balances out by being intensely focused on its disjointed ideas. For very different reasons it reaches a euphoric level of creativity that only albums like "Soft Bulletin" can reach.
I am glad that the Lips are back off track. "Embryonic" is a treasure.

The Flaming Lips, for the last decade purveyors of grinning, gleeful quirk-pop, festooned by confetti and bunny suits--a recipe with initial charm but diminishing returns--have, according to Wayne Coyne, killed off their "former selves . . . Our more crafty or calculated selves. Our less brave selves . . . Our less spontaneous selves". Thus in their 26th year, the band has created what I feel is their strongest work ever: `Embryonic'. The new album borrows from the production techniques and stylistic eclecticism of their previous best, `Zaireeka,' and from the manic energy and freak-out distortion of their 80s and early-90s albums. The stylishness and cinematic scope of their most acclaimed album, `The Soft Bulletin,' is channeled into a darker, sparer, more visceral direction. The two strands combine to create their most sophisticated and at the same time most visceral work. Though there are moments of silliness and optimism, most of the cartoonish clowning ("She Don't Use Jelly," "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots") and scrubbed-clean brightness of their mainstream successes is gone.

`Embryonic's central production feature is the classic Lips technique of very heavily compressing the drums, creating a distorted, absolutely massive sound, this time devoted to more intricate and sexier beats than ever before. Other sonic "solids" are created with stabs of distorted guitar, swooping harps, distant bells, and subtle percussion. But despite these distorted and compressed elements, the music is (literally) highly dynamic, and around and between these sonic boulders and rocks is a beautiful and melodious stream of electric piano and organ, treated vocals, strings and xylophones, and ambient texture. The lyrics remain largely abstract, but a more lifelike character voice is conveyed, one wrestling with the ambiguities of humans, which can be "evil" but can "be gentle, too, if they decide". It all adds up to their most sonically vigorous, sometimes most soothing, sometimes most ferocious, and certainly most emotionally evocative work to date.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 88 reviews  3.7 out of 5 stars