Album Review: The Flaming Lips - The Terror

There is a rumour (that I'm starting right here, right now) that The Flaming Lips are comprised of Wayne Coyne, a housewife prostitute, an agoraphobic gardener, a psychopathic primary school teacher and a dying alien. The characters are uncaged from Coyne's head to play for his amusement when he sees fit. Musically, they certainly make their presence felt on this, their 15th studio album. Lyrically, it's all Coyne.

Whether it's insane quad-LP synchronisation with Zaireeka or their gummy-skull-encased USB drive, a Lips release is something you experience. The Terror, however, is something unconventionally simple (for them). Just. Listen.

It's easy to pinpoint Coyne's lyrics referencing his recent newfound single status, but boiling The Terror down to such a basic theme robs you of other horrible adventures. There are other ways to be alone, you know. You Lust hisses contempt within its 13-minute hypnotism. It sounds like the desperate scraping of a burnt soul trying to escape the inner lining of his own neurocranium. Sure, break-ups suck and nobody wants to be lonely, but Coyne exhaustively explores the paranoias beyond a broken heart in ways that lead to sheer madness (and not the cloying kind that results in an Olly Murs hit). His vocals rarely break beyond a warble, his psycho-psychedelic band dutifully carrying him every painful step. Only The Flaming Lips could turn such a barren mindscape into one of their most accessible experiences in years (and this is a band whose last release was a collaborative album). Sure, they've been peppier in the past with stories about pink robots and a martian Santa Claus, but these are hard times that need to be weathered through.