The Flaming Lips - "Embryonic"

There are points during "Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast"--somewhere in between the majestically swelling choir and the cryptic repeating vocals and the frightening blasts of some futuristic light wand--where you cannot tell whether the honks from the flocks of geese are coming from your headphones or if there are literally flying geese in your living room. This is one of a gallimaufry of strange moments throughout Embryonic, an album that is less a collection of Flaming Lips' songs than it is an exploratory measure of conceptual weirdness and conflict. Gone are the hopeful and optimistic tendencies of "yeah yeah yeah" songs and races for cures; they have been replaced by brooding marches and scaling interludes that look for answers in a world(s) ravished by the struggle of good and evil. But, like the location of the geese, we don't know where these answers lie. All we seem to know is that our hope rests in the hands of the child on the album cover, the one who appears to have a beard and is being pushed into a realm of conflict and piercing light that was not meant for ordinary humans to experience. Yes, it is a truly bizarre mission, and one of the most fantastic albums of the year.

The Flaming Lips have pulled this stunt before--conflict in interplanetary worlds looms heavy in just about every album they have released over the last ten years. But never before have they explored it in this scope. Embryonic sprawls over clashing egos ("The Ego's Last Stand"), decisions about being evil or gentle ("If") or about being frogs or bats ("I Can Be a Frog"), or entire solar systems trying to turn back on ("See the Leaves") with the incongruous brevity of a hallucinogenic attention-span. You wouldn't dare listen to individual tracks, because plucking any one of the 18 songs out of context would send you running for the hills. Embryonic demands a front-to-end finish at each and every listen for the sake of your very sanity. But these complete listens are rewarding, because 1) The Flaming Lips are still The Flaming Lips, and their instrumentation and Wayne Coyne's chanting eventually soothe, and 2) the mysteries they have so intensely placed in front of us do have a chance to be unraveled with guarded and careful attention. But (thankfully), probably not any time soon.