CD review: Embryonic - The Flaming Lips

LONG TRIP: Embryonic takes time to decipher but you have to admire a band unafraid to deconstruct themselves.

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Rock 'n' roll survivors The Flaming Lips have always done things on their own terms.

So it  should come as no surprise that the Oklahoma City residents follow up their three most successful albums  by taking a dramatic U-turn away from creating blissed-out pop-psychedelic masterpieces in favour of returning to their experimental art-rock noisenik beginnings.

Lead  Lip Wayne Coyne said: "The more we started to work on what we thought of as the rackety, self-indulgent, radical freaky filler - well, we just never went back to that other stuff."

The result is 18 songs that range from the buzzing distortion of Worm Mountain, to the free-jazz and reverb-drenched vocals of Your Bats and singer  Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) screaming down a telephone for Watching the Planets.

Even when they return to a straightforward format on Silver Trembling Hands and The Sparrow Looks up at the  Machine, it is still with an experimental base.

Embryonic takes time to decipher but you have to admire a band unafraid to deconstruct themselves to progress.

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- © Fairfax NZ News