The Oklahoma City trio The Flaming Lips reinvented themselves a number of times during their career that began in the early 1990s. Starting out as a wild, guitar-oriented acid rock band, they slowly moved on to a more melodic and psychedelic sound. This resulted in the cosmic pop classic The Soft Bulletin in 1999. With this album the group broke through as a group of pleasantly deranged freaks. On
… Embryonic they unabashedly take this a step further. With a length of about seventy minutes, this had been a double LP in the vinyl era. As on classic doubles like White Album (The Beatles), Sign 'O' The Times (Prince) and Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth), The Flaming Lips on Embryonic take plenty of room to experiment and expand on. Traditionally eccentric songs are alternated with sound experiments, radio plays and jams. As with the aforementioned classics, Embryonic is best listened to as a complete listening trip in which in this case the pleasantly disturbed world of the tireless The Flaming Lips is fully revealed. (MR)more
