Terror

The most important thing about this album is the music, due to the fact that the lyrics are sparse and repetitious, and the music is wonderful. There's a lot going on, and it's something I can really enjoy, unique. The singing is very nice, and the fact that the words are almost unintelligible in some places are a good thing. That's not to say that they lyrics are bad, in fact I'd say that the lyrics, like everything else in the album, have a dark beauty to them, but the lack of intelligibility to the lyrics add to the sense of unknown of the album. The lyrics themselves are where the darker tone to the album comes in, and if you want something dark then this will work great. If not, then the unintelligibility of the lyrics can work again and you don't have to focus on the lyrics. Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die, The Terror, and You Lust are the best songs here, and the whole thing is best when listened to as the full album version (plus you get some speech in You Lust that really adds to it.) This album is full of songs that are strong on their own and work even better together.

The Flaming Lips are hard to pin down, that is what I love and hate about them. To begin with, everything from Here it Is to Priest Driven Ambulance have their moments but none of them is great. Solid music comes in from Hit to the Future Head through Clouds Taste Metallic. A big drop of with Zaireeka (Stupid concept with such high pitched levels of sound it can cause people to pass out). Greatness comes from A Soft Bulletin through War with the Mystics. Then a drop again with Christmas on Mars (unless you like Isolation and distress). A sharp turn back right direction with Embryonic combination of the their developing and great periods--a mixed bad, but it is solid. Then we get this unique piece which is bleaker than the isolation of Christmas on Mars--but who wants to wallow in misery and death over and over. It is worth a listen or two for sure. Than we get the 24 hour rant of 7 Skies--seriously garbage. It wants to be Pink Floyd, but fails miserably as it is just sounds without any real substance. However, cheer up my Lips fans, redemption is on the way, as the next record to be released (in Jan.) has our boys back on the right track if the samples on Amazon are any indication. Its called Oczy Mlody (Eyes of the Children).If your a hard core lips fan--ignore this post and enjoy. If your a reasonable fan like me give it a listen---no promises. And if your new to this band and not a fan at all--start with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and go from there forwards or backwards one cd. Then you are on your own.

I listened to this album a couple times without feeling like it connected with me at all, then I forgot about it for a few weeks.Then one day, probably because I was in a bleak mood, I remembered the feel of the album and I put it back on... it was the PERFECT background for an overcast morning when I was feeling "blah." It's that kind of album. Not a pick-me-up by ANY means. When I'm not feeling like a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but also not feeling aggressive, I really like this music. For what it is, it's really good. And I've found it compelling enough that I've given it repeated listens.So if you want a moody album that's consistent in quality with every song... this is a good one. Just don't expect it to put you in a good mood.

I bought this album because I really like earlier Flaming Lips albums. At War With the Mystics and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots are favorites of mine, so after reading other reviews I thought that I might like this album. However, after two listens there is only one song on this album that I like, Be Free, A Way. The rest of it just sounds like noise overlaid with uninteresting lyrics. I like the cover of the album, but the contents within have driven me away.

Great album. Trippy is hell. Love to workout and/or blaze up to this with headphones on. Flaming Lips never disappoint. Wayne and the gang continue to remind listeners of our collective mortality, and the appreciation of life that should bring. A very Buddhist message. Carpe Diem mofo's.

This album was good, be patient with it. Don't expect to put it in and love it. After a few listens I'm starting to warm up to it more. DO NOT expect At War With the Mystics or Yoshimi. You will be ineveitably dissapointed if you do.That being said a die hard Flaming Lips fan will appreciate and enjoy the album.

I feel like this album could have been good. It had some good parts, and I liked the atmosphere that it was trying to bring. I really did try to like this. But it sounded like they were focused way too much on adding way too many layers complexity to all of the songs. And I don't mean musical complexity. There really isn't any of that here. I just mean a mess of different synth loops all layered on top of each other.Now I appreciate that they're trying to make something different, and I really love all kinds of bizarre music, but a lot of this album was downright obnoxious. They'll play the same damn synth over and over again, even though it doesn't even mesh with anything else in the song at all in the first place. I get that they're trying to be psychedelic, but that's not how you do it. More sounds doesn't necessarily mean better. The sounds need to work with each other, otherwise it's just random noise.So all and all I'm pretty disappointed. I was pretty psyched when I saw a bunch of positive reviews popping up for this, hoping they might have produced something amazing again. But I felt like it was a chore to listen to and I was glad it was over by the time it was done. I'll admit the last song wasn't terrible, and many songs had good parts to them. It's just that they were few and far between, and often stuff that could have been decent was masked by an excessive amount of obnoxious sound effects.

Back to their true psychedelic roots.