Embryonic by Flaming Lips

3 out of 5 3

I have a dream. It's that one day a glorious new dawn breaks and musicians of all races, creeds and colours will unite in the realisation that making an album of "freak-out rock jams" is, generally, not a terribly good idea. Those musicians, however, are not Oklahoma's lovable odd-bods Flaming Lips and that album is emphatically not Embryonic. "We did, on all levels, completely lose our way," frontman Wayne Coyne admits in the blurb accompanying their 12th record. "We surrendered to every impulsive whim… and now we stand before you not knowing what we have done."

Well, at least we're all clear about where we stand. Embryonic is an improvised double album not so much written as stumbled upon – and, boy, it sounds like it. Fragmented, loose, indulgent, occasionally inspired, it's considerably heavier than their last outing, 2006's At War With the Mystics, and though it may be high concept – a preoccupation with nature and the power of the elements meanders through the songs – it's lo-fi: fuzzy, raw and warped.

What's most astonishing about a record where the overarching creative ethos is "be more free" is how narrow and homogenous much of it ends up sounding. Thunderous opener Convinced of the Hex is built upon the clattering bones of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows; thunderous closer Watching the Planets (which features the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' vocalist Karen O) is… built upon the clattering bones of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. Perhaps inevitably for an album written on the hoof, there's an almost fatal shortage of stickable tunes. Embryonic is essentially a rhythmic record, virtually every song propelled by syncopated drums and a distorted, circular bass line while digitised bleeps and whistles bubble in the background.

Coyne still can't really sing, his wispy vocal whine drifting over the proceedings like fluffy cloud-cover, floating around in search of the ghost of a melody that usually isn't there. Thankfully, over 18 songs and 70 minutes some startlingly lovely moments do rise to the surface: the passage of organ music – like a post-millennial Bach fugue – in the middle of the excellent See the Leaves; the touching Evil and its counterpoint If, both nodding towards the symphonic beauty of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots; and the way the ominous, expectant Powerless (which sounds a bit like Led Zeppelin's No Quarter) slides into an insistent, nagging guitar solo, like a finger worrying away at a throbbing tooth.

Their much-vaunted pop sensibility and beguiling disingenuousness are not entirely absent, either. Silver Trembling Hands is a sparkling jewel, and where else would you find a giggling Karen O pretending to be a bear, bat, cat, wolf, helicopter, locust and frog on a song called – oh yes – I Can Be a Frog? Embryonic is certainly not without charm, but its title gives the game away. Largely, it's the sound of a band seeking inspiration rather than finding it.

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