Flaming Lips - The Terror

The Flaming Lips have announced their 15th studio album, tentatively titled The Terror. Describing it as "possibly the best Flaming Lips record ever made", Wayne Coyne revealed that the LP's sombre tone has been coloured by band member Steven Drozd's recent battle with substance abuse.

"It was probably the worst time of [steven's] life," Coyne told Rolling Stone. "He was in a bad way." This is the first time the Flaming Lips have hinted at the reason for Drozd's sudden hospitalisation in 2010, which forced them to cancel two concerts. "I had to do this and I'm getting it together," Drozd tweeted at the time. It now seems the 43-year-old, who quit heroin in 2001, was once again using drugs.

Secluding himself in a separate studio, Coyne said, Drozd wrote beautiful and "horribly creepy" songs. "He did this one piece of music and did lyrics … Not all the [words] were audible, but he had these things saying 'you are alone,' and then the other voice saying, 'I am not alone.' Back and forth between some horrible internal dialogue. It was truly devastating."

The Flaming Lips have spent the last couple of years experimenting, including a six-hour song, and culminating in the Heady Fwendz collaboration album. But all along, Coyne said, the band were "stumbling upon these little things," snippets of improvisation or Drozd's grim inventions, which have gradually turned into Lips songs. Although Drozd is "better now than ever," the group didn't discard his darker work: instead, they expanded this material with more lyrics and new arrangements.

The Terror is about "finding the answer," Coyne said. "What it hones in on is this idea that you really do have to surrender yourself to something before you get a great reward … You sit in this dilemma of 'Do I live a half-life because I don't want to live in pain?' or 'Do I go all the way in life and then kill myself?' That's the dilemma I saw in Steven at that peak of his pain."

The Flaming Lips hope to release The Terror this autumn.

Source : http://www.guardian....error-new-album

Can't wait !!! I love their new direction since Embryonic.

sounds amazing but I would use "the terror" to describe the production of embryonic. please Wayne, please make this listenable. my ears have still not forgiven you.

hehe

I love their raw production since Embryonic. Really.

I've thought for 20 years that IAPDA & HTDITFH were the 2 best FL albums but recently I've been thinking that AWWTM is actually their best record.

Embryonic was good in theory but in actuality it sucked. That has been my feeling on it.

I never really got into it. Never really gave it many listens though to be fair.

musically i loved but, but god's honest truth, i couldn't listen to it. it seriously hurt.

This sounds fucking mental! And I'm not the worlds biggest FL's fan either.

  On 8/23/2012 at 3:07 PM, LUDD said:

I've thought for 20 years that IAPDA & HTDITFH were the 2 best FL albums but recently I've been thinking that AWWTM is actually their best record.

and we have a winner!

Embryonic had some KILLER tracks but had some stretches where it kind of meandered it bit too long. Overall, I'm really glad they made that album.

Good to see people liking At War With The Mystics. This track:

oh yeah

Great song indeed ! And great record.

Embryonic is my fav album of theirs though. A grower, really. I was first intrigued by it, and slowly got into it and it has become one of my very fav album. Its fuzzy/saturated/raw vibe is stunning. I agree there are some almost fillers in it, but when I don't feel like listening to them I simply skip them... the same way I would when listening to hmmm Drukqs.

Anyway, can't wait for that Terror.

And I'm eager to have the time to properly listen to "FL and Heady Fwends", just bought the CD.

I have yet to be convinced of AWWTM. I was already unsure of it before I saw the salad dressing commercial song that used The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song. Maybe I'm living in the past but the 90s Lips really speaks to me more than the more recent stuff, even if I've liked pretty much everything I've ever heard from them.

Yeah yeah yeah song is pretty is pretty stale. It makes more sense as an attempt to be a big crowd pleasing singalong live song.

The rest of the album is scattered with highlights^^

  On 8/23/2012 at 3:07 PM, LUDD said:

recently I've been thinking that AWWTM is actually their best record.

It is, no contest. They've done a lot of great albums, but that one is stupidly good. I'd be surprised to hear an album that tops it in the next 5 years (by anyone).

  On 9/5/2012 at 8:49 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

  On 8/23/2012 at 3:07 PM, LUDD said:

recently I've been thinking that AWWTM is actually their best record.

 

It is, no contest. They've done a lot of great albums, but that one is stupidly good. I'd be surprised to hear an album that tops it in the next 5 years (by anyone).

sorry. changed my mind back. just listened to HTDITFH again for the first time in a while. maybe it's indelibly connected to that era, doing loads of acid etc but that is hands down the best lips record in their discography. by the time it gets to hold your head i'm so nostalgically linked to plateau-ing (new verb?) on acid that it is pretty much an unbeatable listening experience.

  On 9/5/2012 at 7:57 AM, pigster said:

Yeah yeah yeah song is pretty is pretty stale. It makes more sense as an attempt to be a big crowd pleasing singalong live song.

The rest of the album is scattered with highlights^^

The WAND

The Terror:

01 Look...The Sun Is Rising
02 Be Free, A Way
03 Try To Explain
04 You Lust
05 The Terror
06 You Are Alone
07 Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die
08 Turning Violent
09 Always There...In Our Hearts

April 1st

That is a classic album cover.

Hey . I'm guessing the album will sound like that butterfly track? Unless its been re-recorderd for the album..

please make it listenable. embryonic was painful.

production-wise that is.

Well they can't push it any further in that everything's-in-the-red direction...

I liked the nasty over the top loudness of Embryonic, at least for headphone listening. It was cool to hear it pushed to that extreme for one album, as it adds to the uniqueness of it. But hopefully the rest of their album career isn't just a quest to make everything as loud as possible. AWWTM is my favorite album from a production standpoint. That to me is sonic bliss. Everything's big and loud without it ever being disgusting, whereas Embryonic's like "let's make this disgusting just for the hell of it!"

And yeah, love that cover. I'm excited to hear them venture further into the dark side. Looks like a good existential angst album.

I've considered getting embryonic on vinyl to see if the mix is any nicer. Can anyone comment? Is it pretty much the same? Because its supposed to be loud and nasty, or is it better better better?

Really dig the album artwork and while I dont listen to embryonic often I do think its a great album. Just yeah, Loud.

titties this sounds excellent

new song

(this song is bonus song, not on album.)

( which is a good thing, because the singing/chorus/verses etc. kind of clashes with the instrumentation for me. )