I listened to The Flaming Lips new album, Embryonic, last night and am listening to it again today while I type out these first (or second, technically) impressions.

As of last night the album is streaming on ColbertNation.com (this was announced by Stephen Colbert right before The Flaming Lips performed “Convinced of the Hex” on The Colbert Report last night.) It will be available to stream through the 21st (Monday.)

Speaking of their performance last night, I thought it was great. It had a more “live” feel than any other post Ronald Jones show I’ve seen them do (and I’ve seen them live quite a few times.) There were six guys playing, which is two more than the usual four guys (Wayne Coyne on vocals, Steven Drozd on guitar/keys, Michael Ivins on bass/keys, & Kliph Scurlock on drums.) I’m not sure who the extra two guys are? One was playing guitar and the other was adding percussion.

“Convinced of the Hex” – This song is one of three that I have already heard quite a few times (because they have been available to download as a part of the Embryonic Digital EP.) It’s a creepy kraut-rock influenced jam with a great hypnotic bass line. A great way to open the album. I’m loving how “organic” everything sounds compared to the very plastic sounding At War with the Mystics (which opened with the somewhat annoying “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” for comparison’s sake.)

“The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine” – Continues with a similar ragged jam vibe as the opener. Another really excellent pulsating bass riff. Fantastic drumming with that classic bigger than seems possible Flaming Lips drum sound. This actually reminds me a bit of Zaireeka.

“Evil” – This track slows things up and really allows you to soak in all of the bizarre ambiance. Very dark and creepy for most of the song, but at about 4 minutes it starts to lift up out of the darkness with some lovely vocal harmonies. In a way this reminds me of some of the slower songs from Yoshimi… as far as the lyrical content and the song itself but the approach is much different. Yoshimi… was very clean and controlled. This is the opposite of that.

“Aquarius Sabotage” – An absolutely insane instrumental which manages to combine all sorts of sounds that normally aren’t heard together.

“See The Leaves” – The darkness of this album is starting to really hit me. This is a dark evil album and this is a great example of that evil darkness. Like the first two tracks, this one has a definite kraut-rock influence and is similarly propelled forward by a heavy bass line. At about 2:45 into it the song takes a different direction. What direction is that? To slow things down and get even darker and even more evil.

“If” – I read that Steven Drozd sings this, which makes sense – because it doesn’t sound like Wayne. Fans of The Soft Bulletin (and everyone should be such a fan as it’s a brilliant album) will be pleased to hear the return of the “watch beep.” The song continues with the evil theme of the album thus far with the first lyric being “People are evil, it’s true.” It’s a short, slow song that a sort of strangely childlike feeling to it. And there’s a weird fuzzy sound repeating throughout the song that I can’t really describe.

“Gemini Syringes” – I love the little repeating percussion sound (which from this interview with Wayne I think is Karen O from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs making “clicking gunshot sounds.”) The fuzz is back. The bass is heavy and and upfront in the mix, but it’s slower than the first couple of tracks.

“Your Bats” – Somehow the drums sound even bigger on this track. Again I’m reminded of Zaireeka. This is really far-out stuff. In fact, it may be their most bizarre album to date (and that’s saying a lot) and it’s almost definitely their least melodic (I’m not hearing many vocal parts that listeners will be humming after the album is over.) I’m not so sure how the people who got into The Lips because of their singalongs like “Do Ya Realize” are going to feel about it. I’m thinking this album may make a lot of their older 1990s era fans very happy but may turn off a lot of their newer fans.

“Powerless” – The thing that really stands out about this one for me is the guitar solo that starts at about 2 minutes in and thing that most stands out to me about this guitar solo is that one of main sounds seems to be the sound of the guitarist unplugging and plugging his guitar back in. “Free Bird” it is not. In some ways this actually reminds me of 1980s era Flaming Lips. As I’m not really a huge fan of ’80s era Lips, I’m not really sure if I like this one or not. It’s the longest song on the album at about 7 minutes in length.

“The Ego’s Last Stand” – More heavy bass. Some heavenly vocal harmonies enter. And then at about 2:30 in the song just absolutely explodes which is all the more effective because it almost feels like the entire album up to that point was waiting for that explosion. Goosebumps.

“I Can Be A Frog” – I don’t really know how to describe this. It’s sort of like something you’d hear during a musical like “The Sound of Music” but of course it’s a suitably bizarro world version of that.

“Sagittarius Silver Announcement” – I love the vocal harmonies. Space-Rock indeed. It reminds me of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which is a very good thing to me as that’s one of my favorite albums ever.

“Worm Mountain” – You know how I’ve been describing most of the songs as having heavy bass? This song takes the whole “heavy bass” concept to the next level. This song sounds like it’s trying to explode my speakers. It seems like a song they should play live.

“Scorpio Sword” – This album manages to continually get crazier and crazier.

“The Impulse” – Placed at this point in the album this really feels like a relief from all of the madness. Yes a song with a robot voice singing with a match being lit as it’s percussion is a relief from the madness in comparison to what’s come before. It’s a very soft sounding song – like a cloud you can lay in.

“Silver Trembling Hands” – Probably the song that would work best as a single (not that I can really imagine it being played on the radio, then again I haven’t listened to the radio in years.) It reminds me a Soft Bulletin era song with a bit of an Embryonic evilness injected into it.

“Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast” – The creepiest track on the album. The minimalism allows each of the parts of the song (the big ping, the floating vocal harmonies, the speaking voice, the animal noises) to really crawl right inside the listener’s mind.

“Watching The Planets” – A huge track to end the album. It really thumps. It has a similar bass to “Convinced of the Hex” which I think helps to connect the album together in some sort of way. It’s one of the few songs on the album that has a lead vocal that I can imagine folks singing along with at a show. This seems like a song that would translate pretty well live.

Become A MusicByDay.com Music Blogger.