Matt Tenenbaum
Special to The Leader

Take a good look at the album cover you see before you. I’m baffled trying to make any possible sense of the cover, let alone the album itself. From my perspective, a giant luminous hand guides the way of a bearded lady; her eyes illuminate so wide, it’s as if she’s viewing the world for the first time. Or maybe she’s viewing the world from a new, incredibly different perspective. Who knows. I can’t really think of a better way to put a visual perception, or rationale, on Embryonic, the twelfth studio album by The Flaming Lips.

In a nutshell, The Flaming Lips are a group of dudes that love to make weird music. They’re best known for their lush, spacey, psychedelic rock arrangements that span every spectrum of musical tastes and genres. They close the decade behind their two other critically acclaimed albums Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) and At War with the Mystics (2006). The group simply has a great ear for bringing odd sounds and rhythms together into something special. Their latest album is no different, and in fact may just be their weirdest album yet, which is a grand statement considering their critically acclaimed career that spans nearly three decades.

Embryonic is their first double album, and the influence shows. “Some of my favorite records,” said lead singer and principal songwriter Wayne Coyne in an interview with Billboard, “thinking Beatles ‘White Album,’ Zeppelin’s ‘Physical Graffiti’ and even some of the longer things that the Clash have done – part of the reason I like them is that they’re not focused. They’re kind of like a freefor-all and go everywhere.” Embryonic is indeed sprawling, unfocused, and a very dark and raw album. Unlike past records by the band, it lacks a particular musical focus, but retains a universal theme throughout. Ranging from raw psychedelic energy to more lush arrangement and freak out jams, this album spans every portion of their career.

This is by no means a single’s album; you won’t see any song off Embryonic topping radio charts. Much like any album by The Flaming Lips, it is meant to be listened to as a whole. There are plenty of musical highlights. Wayne repeats “That’s the difference between us” multiple times on the opening track “Convinced of the Hex”, mixing hi-fi and lo-fi over fuzz bass and pounding drums. “Silver Trembling Heads” is another standout, a grandiose song that slowly builds up to soaring guitar climax. This is an album where any track can become an individual favorite. Even the smaller moments, and even the slow burn songs such as “If”, “The Impulse”, and “I Can Be a Frog” help to build to the more classic moments.

At eighteen tracks running just over seventy minutes in length, Embryonic is an incredible experience. Some may be turned off simply by the overall sound of the album, or some of the slower or stranger portions of the album. Those with enough patience will find repeated listens bring many rewards in an album hidden with them on every corner.

“Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we should do a double album… Just this idea that you can weave a couple of themes into there and you can sprawl a little bit,” added Wayne Coyne in the interview with Billboard. Embryonic is an ambitious, daring and rewarding album of incredibly raw musical joy.