Oczy Mlody

Aside from a lousy plot, Oczy Mlody's only other failing is it's a slow build. The first half is sparse, uninviting and even a little drab.

The best moments here are either instrumental or wordless, when Coyne's voice--which, though never technically impressive, always fit perfectly with each album's sound, whether it was the ragged bombast of their Soft Bulletin-era epics or the hushed haunt of The Terror--becomes a whispering (or even whistling) texture. Lyrically, though, Coyne appears to have exhausted any last nuggets of profundity he once had.

If lyrics about mushrooms, unicorns and frogs are your jam, Coyne & Co. of course have you covered. The Naked Slaves and Amazon strippers do feel tiredly exploitative. [Feb 2017, p.93]

Oczy Mlody continues the Lips' longstanding mission to explore the joy and sadness of simple human consciousness, so that even when the album loses its footing--which it does, often--it never loses its way. [Feb 2017, p.34]

At times acutely annoyingly, far-out wackiness permeate much of the proceedings, rendering the album's less rewarding half as disposable as the band's frustratingly inconsequential recent self-indulgences ala messy guest star workout The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012).

On Oczy Mlody they play out like a teenager trying to write a paper while he is high. The lyrics range from vaguely inspiring to cringe inducing, but just like their underrated At War With the Mystics, the record finishes with three strong tracks in a row.

While The Terror sharply divided fans and Oczy Mlody fails to to anything notable or interesting, Mlody isn’t a bad album: just a forgettable, dismissable one.

Rich in interesting R&B-influenced textures, its songs too often fail to engage, particularly on a ponderous second half.

Frequent changes in instrumentation and tone ultimately make Oczy Mlody feel unfocused, and without any of the band’s signature flamboyance to fall back on, it makes for a dull listen.