Album review: The Flaming Lips, The Terror

This album sees The Flaming Lips escalate an already giddy career to an even more psychotic level, with excerpts from childhood dreams lacerated by nightmares of David Lynchian proportions.
By COLIN SOMERVILLE
Published 31st Mar 2013, 00:00 GMT

The Flaming Lips

The Terror

Bella Union, £15.99

*****

They may be punctuated by broadcast squelches suggestive of a rogue pirate radio station, but Wayne Coyne’s visions appear more sharply focused than ever.

Opening with the trippy Look The Sun Is Rising, the album starts off-planet and gets even further out there. Try To Explain’s vaguely poppy conventions pave the way for You Lust – which, with its addictive pulsing riff, is the record’s high point.

Hide Ad

The chorus “Lust to succeed” is reminiscent of Propaganda’s Dr Mabuse in a curious way, but the ethereal backing vocals are all The Flaming Lips’ own.

This is the intense deconstruction of the rock record the band have been threatening to do since they first formed. No cuddly oversized bunny costumes, wanton festival crowd-pleasing or happy-go-lucky stoner choruses like The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song masking insurrectional intent.

The Terror philosophises darkly on the future of the species – an alien concept in the modern music world. As are The Flaming Lips.

Download this: You Lust, The Terror