Week of The Flaming Lips

     With so many new and important albums coming out every week. I have to be very careful to choose an important one for my weekly review. This album definitely fits that standard. This week I will be reviewing The Flaming Lips- The Terror.

     The Flaming Lips are an American band from Norman, Oklahoma in 1983. They originally consisted of Wayne Coyne on guitar, his brother Mark Coyne on lead vocals, and Bichael Ivins on bass. Adding drummer Richard English they recorded Their debut ep The Flaming Lips. The only one where Wayne isn't the lead singer. Mark left and Wayne took over vocals on their first album Hear It Is in 1986. That lineup did two more albums before hiring producer Dave Fredonia to help record In a Priest Driven Ambulance for only 10,000 dollars. This marked their first use of tape loops and Wayne's higher vocals. After changing members they put out two more albums, Hit to Death in the Future Head and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. Which brought the single "She Don't Use Jelly" as well as a tour opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Candlebox. After Clouds Taste Metallic and the four disc effort Zaireeka, they put out The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Both of which brought huge commercial success and a cult following. They put out At War With Mystics, Embryonic, as well as a Pink Floyd covers album for Dark Side of the Moon. They released so many random things that I couldn't begin to cover all of them, but at least this brings us up to The Terror.

     The Flaming Lips just might be the weirdest band on the planet. Especially with a band leader like Wayne Coyne. He could be the ringleader of the strangest circus on earth. From playing live shows in cemeteries to taking grenades into airports, they have done it all. On the Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends the bands collaboration album, Wayne took blood samples from everyone that was featured on the album: Ke$ha, Chris Martin, Nice Cave, Erykah Badu, and many others and put their blood in the limited release LPs that came out on record store day. Even weirder to me is their obsession with Ke$ha, first collaborating with her and now writing a full album with her entitled Lip$ha do out later this year. Then of course there is their infamous gummy creations which was done as part of a goal to put out new music once a month in 2011. First they made a new song and put it on a flashdrive and put that in a life sized gummy skull, followed later by a gummy fetus song, and a gummy version of the female anatomy. During that same song writing session they made a 12 hour long song and a 24 hour long song. If that's not weird enough for you watch one of their music videos that is some trippy stuff. Everyone in the band claims to be drug free but you got to wonder when you could write a book on their weirdness. Lastly of course there is thier famous live shows. I have never personally witnessed one, but that will change on April 28th when I catch them with the Black Keys. I will give that show a proper blog live show review.
                                         Here is their music video for "She Don't Use Jelly".

     The Terror has been described as a very dark and depressing album about personal turmoil, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and death. Not your usual happy circus sounding event from them. So every one hoping for a return to the happy days of The Soft Bulletin, sorry definitely not happening here. This album feels like the comedown after a very long and powerful LSD trip. Where in the past even the more scary messages were fun to take in and just experience the trip, on The Terror its what you would expect downright Terrifying. They throw us into a world with out love, where you feel the pain and panic of the exact opposite of what every Beatles song has been saying for years. How to carry on in a world of pure sadness, loneliness, and emptiness. It's dark its painful and its beautiful. This album is about the very human aspect of pain, even the Flaming Lips feel it. They even added in two happier bonus tracks "Sun Blows Up Today" and the Edward Sharpe influenced "All You Need is Love", at the end of the album like a post album pallet cleanser to wash away the darkness. You need to remember this was written when Steven Drozd was in the middle of a relapse and singer Wayne Coyne separated from his partner of 25 years. They even designed a new stage act for the album. Take it for what it is new music from The Flaming Lips.
                                             The Flaming Lips The Terror Live at SXSW.

     The album opener "Look...The Sun is Rising" throws us head first into this new world. I like to think of it like that album cover. The person is expecting to feel the warmth of the sun, but instead gets overburdened and beaten down by its fierce rays. Its starts off with pounding beats over layers of distorted guitar and synths. "Be Free, A Way" continues the synths and beats, along with good use of a drum machine. The song is less in your face replacing pounding with a sad slow ballad feel. "Try To Explain",  is the most uplifting song on the album making use of a choir of background singers. "You Lust is the true meat of the album clocking in at thirteen minutes. The song features Phantogram, Wayne duets with the female singer. The song is good but drags out the haunting melody a little too long. "The Terror" is a true nightmare or a bad acid trip either way its is a haunting song blasted with sonic waves or crazy beats. It's intentions are made clear, to show terror. "You Are Alone" is a heartbreaking and haunting ballad about Wayne loosing his partner of 25 years. "Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die" is a haunting but beautiful song that uses synths and funk guitar to drive it. It talks about a how a beautiful sunset is a metaphor for death, quite the buzz kill. "Turning Violent" is a dark bass driven song until the end when it explodes in a sonic blast into quite the epic song. The albums closer "Allways There In Our Hearts" is quite the ending to the album starting off slow and building to a moment where they pull out all the stops and the music explodes into a truly dark and wonderful ending.

     The Band is very aware of how dark and depressing this album is. Enough so that they even add two songs on the end as a way to try and make you happy again. Like the songs in the movie credits after it is over. This is a challenging listen for any Flaming Lips fan and you may not appreciate it the first time through. If you go into it with an open mind not expecting it to sound like anything they have ever done before, you will be as prepared for it as you can be. Be ready its a dark, emotional roller coaster of an album. It's also a very beautiful and wonderful album about the hard parts of life. Life isn't always confetti and rolling around in a giant hamster ball,  even for The Flaming Lips.
Recommended Songs: Listen to the whole album for the full experience: Look... The Sun Is Rising, Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die, Turning Violent, Always There... In Our Hearts.

4/5 Stars