Anticipating The Terror

For a band that I was ready to write off completely after 2006's messy, over-produced At War with the Mystics, the Flaming Lips have bounced back in a big way to regain their status as one of my favorite rock bands (despite Wayne Coyne's best efforts to convince me otherwise, I still think he's an asshole for that Erykah Badu thing). Anyway, Embryonic was a hugely exciting album for me, one that soundtracked some really difficult moments in my life and ended up as my album of the year for 2009. All of their "wacky" experiments since haven't really moved me one way or another, although I thought their take on Dark Side of the Moon with Stardeath and White Dwarfs was quite fun and there were enough moments on the Heady Fwends thing to keep it interesting. I had high hopes for this follow-up, but that Super Bowl commercial that featured "Sun Blows Up Today" had me afraid they'd slid back to their post-Yoshimi populist nadir. But, as it turns out, that isn't even really on the album proper and, judging from the four minute teaser video up top, there is little to worry about. The band is still definitively in a relatively "outre" period. It'll be tough to match, let alone top, Embryonic, but I'm encouraged to hear them try.