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.

np: "Slow Jaboni" - Surfer Blood

Pretty great little tune from a band I recently discovered thanks to their recent appearance on the KEXP Live Performance Podcast. These guys hit me in sort of the same place as the excellent debut last year from Real Estate, but I plan on talking a little bit more about them in the coming weeks, once I've had time to more fully digest the album.

Meanwhile, this was posted some time ago, but I completely forgot to link to it here. This is the nice year-end wrap-up feature I was a part of over at Metro Pulse. Neat little blurbs about the staff's favorite albums of the year. I wrote three blurbs for the piece, one each for The Flaming Lips, Baroness, and Animal Collective. In case you might be too lazy to scroll around over there, here are my blurbs:

Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)

The addition of huge hooks and bass-heavy rhythms to the band’s atmospheric trance was so natural it’s a wonder they didn’t arrive here sooner, although they might not have hit upon such a thrilling and timeless pop formula without the years of experimentation. Merriweather Post Pavilion provides a fitting cap to one of the decade’s most surprising success stories.

Baroness, Blue Record (Relapse)

Anyone who thought Mastodon had the whole “Southern sludge metal goes prog” thing wrapped up with Crack the Skye had another thing coming when Baroness released its second long-player in October. Blue Record picks up where Red Album left off and delves even deeper into King Crimson territory. Just a cursory listen as the instrumental “Ogeechee Hymnal” bleeds into the ferocious “A Horse Called Golgotha” reveals far more depth than most doubters are willing to grant metal. But the monster riffs and the fiery guitar solo on “Bullhead’s Lament” prove where these guys’ hearts lie.

The Flaming Lips, Embryonic (Warner Bros.)

The Flaming Lips bounced back in a big way this year and shattered expectations lowered by 2006’s mediocre At War With the Mystics with this absolutely stunning late-period masterpiece. Wayne Coyne and his cohorts did more than simply return to their psychedelic roots, eschewing their recent upbeat pop leanings in favor of darker, more outré material. Free-jazz guitar solos, interstellar mathematical transmissions, and even cellular interference all found their place in Embryonic’s world, giving us an unexpected late-career game-changer and one of the year’s easiest albums to get completely lost in.

As mentioned on this post a couple days ago, I recently wrote a review for the new Flaming Lips album and it has gone up at a completely new outlet for me, Metro Pulse. You can read it here.

np: "Powerless" - The Flaming Lips

Embryonic is a treat, to be certain. An unexpected slab of brilliance that will add another bright, shining star to the shimmering galaxy that is the Flaming Lips discography. At the very least it rates right up there with Clouds Taste Metallic and In A Priest Driven Ambulance as their three best albums. But more on that when my review goes up shortly. For now I want to share what I believe to be one of the standout tracks from the album. Actually this song represents the middle third of the the three-track run that cemented this as one of my favorite albums of the year. For those of you still missing Ronald Jones, the fantastic guitar work here should give you another reason to give the band another chance.

np: "The Ego's Last Stand" - The Flaming Lips

I've known for a couple weeks now that Embryonic is a pretty great record. What I discovered last night, however, is that it is also a great record for walking around in the crisp October air contemplating the curveballs that life throws us. See, yesterday I found out that I was going to become yet another statistic in this stagnant American economy. I was laid off from my job yesterday afternoon with very little notice and tossed into the uncertain freefall that is unemployment. After a few hours of letting things sink in and talking things over with my wife and family, I decided I needed to get a little air and went for a walk. I instinctively reached for my iPod and threw it into my pocket on the way out the door. After tying my shoes, I popped the earbuds in and started scrolling through the 'Artists' tags... and... well, shit. Now what. What do I want to listen to? An old favorite? Something uplifting? Something soothing? Distracting? Eventually I settled mainly on the last option and figured this would do the trick. Did it ever. It was almost (I say almost, because I don't know that I could EVER pick the perfect song for the perfect moment even if I had years to plan it) the perfect thing to listen to as I walked around the neighborhood. And not just because Wayne was singing "see the leaves / they're dying again" as I kicked my way through piles of them. The whole air of uncertainty and confusion resonated very deeply within me, particularly these lyrics to the third track, "Evil":

I wish I could go back / go back in time
But no one ever really can go back in time / go back in time
Oh I would have shown you / those people are evil
And they'll hurt you if they can
I never understand

Not so much the "people are evil" part (although, yes, there was a little of this too), but more the "I never understand" lament. I didn't understand, hell I still don't. It was one of those moments during which music helped me to gain a deeper insight into what I was feeling, even if I hadn't had time to explore those feelings fully myself. I won't say The Flaming Lips made me feel better about my situation, of course they didn't. But they didn't really make me feel any worse either. They just made me feel, and that felt pretty important in the moment. And really, how much more can we expect from music?