Embryonic
- The Flaming Lips
- Band Name: The Flaming Lips
- Record Label: WEA/Reprise
- Release Date: Oct 13, 2009
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Ten years after their last masterpiece, The Flaming Lips have finally produced another one.
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This is accessible music pushed to the very edge of accessibility, far away from the safety of the band's song-oriented efforts "At War with the Mystics" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."
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Although I gather there's a concept here, knowing what it is might ruin the gently wigged-out dystopianism the lyrics cozy up to. More important, it might undercut the otherwise irreducible pleasures of their exploding guitars, unworldly synths, and crazy drums.
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Embryonic presents a band discovering that the far edge of an idea is often more compelling than its core.
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90We can only hope that, as we enter the 2010s, Embryonic portends yet another new phase for the Flaming Lips--one that's equally as improbable and rewarding as the ones that have preceded it.
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Embryonic is an album full of little revolutions--a trippier, noisier, more experimental journey than the Flaming Lips have taken in forever. [Dec 2009, p.116]
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Embryonic gestates the Lips to a new phase, turning eerily inward to finally face the flipside of their frantic catharsis.
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Embryonic works so staggeringly well because it's so unafraid to place itself in the lineage of unapologetically over-the-top rock album.
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It's a wonderfully weird parade of sonic delights: an arresting consummation of the Lips' two-and-a-half decade career.
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86Surprise and relief are the words that best describe an initial reaction to Embryonic. [Fall 2009, p.90]
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The act should be credited for not hewing to the tried-and-true formula it pretty much invented with previous releases but many of the double-disc's 18 tracks feel like they are embryonic rather than fully formed.