Embryonic (Deluxe Version)

The Flaming Lips like challenges. They like to take noises and found sound, electronically manipulated instrumentation and sonically altered vocals, and find the song after the damage is done. Their film Christmas On Mars included some of the band’s most atmospheric and formless songwriting and it’s from this starting point that Embryonic begins its creation. The album’s title was chosen since Lips leader Wayne Coyne wished to keep the songs and sounds in their earliest stages before too much thinking and development would alter their initial inspirations. The sounds are occasionally abrasive and ugly (“Convinced of the Hex”). Tunes vary in scope, with the deep ‘70s funk of “See the Leaves,” or pop melodies altered for great effect (“Evil”) with flashes of hazy innocence (“If”). Five tunes are abbreviated pieces named from Zodiac signs (“Aquarius Sabotage,” “Gemini Syringes”). “Your Bats,” “Powerless,” “Silver Trembling Hands” near conventional songwriting, but are sonically altered to the point of near obliteration. “Watching the Planets” ends things with a final crunch. And a cosmic concept hides under the tough, spacey pieces of instrumental wreckage.