All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

New Musical Express

Ten years after their last masterpiece, The Flaming Lips have finally produced another one.

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100

The Phoenix

This is accessible music pushed to the very edge of accessibility, far away from the safety of the band's song-oriented efforts "At War with the Mystics" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

Embryonic presents a band discovering that the far edge of an idea is often more compelling than its core.

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Pitchfork

We can only hope that, as we enter the 2010s, Embryonic portends yet another new phase for the Flaming Lips--one that's equally as improbable and rewarding as the ones that have preceded it.

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Alternative Press

Embryonic is an album full of little revolutions--a trippier, noisier, more experimental journey than the Flaming Lips have taken in forever. [Dec 2009, p.116]

cokemachineglow

Embryonic works so staggeringly well because it’s so unafraid to place itself in the lineage of unapologetically over-the-top rock album.

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Paste Magazine

It’s a wonderfully weird parade of sonic delights: an arresting consummation of the Lips' two-and-a-half decade career.

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Filter

Surprise and relief are the words that best describe an initial reaction to Embryonic. [Fall 2009, p.90]

Billboard.com

The act should be credited for not hewing to the tried-and-true formula it pretty much invented with previous releases but many of the double-disc's 18 tracks feel like they are embryonic rather than fully formed.

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Mojo

It's themes may be familiar, but its fine, dazzlingly outlandish music is fresh and utterly fearless. [Nov 2009, p.88]

musicOMH.com

To write it off too early would be criminal, as Embryonic represents The Flaming Lips at their most awkward, most engaging, and most creative.

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NOW Magazine

Along with this requisite silliness come beautiful melodies (See The Leaves), exploding rock-out sections (The Ego’s Last Stand) and catchy, laid-back guitar melodies (Silver Trembling Hands).

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No Ripcord

Embryonic is a true 21st century freak-out and it’s only appropriate to end this decade with such an ambitious, intrepid undertaking.

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Dot Music

It's quite brilliant, the one thing we have come to expect from this band.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

What The Flaming Lips have accomplished with Embryonic is impossible to ignore: an ambitious double album in an age where the single is making a comeback, a collection of music that makes a 25-year-old band sound vital and new.

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All Music Guide

Little about Embryonic is clear-cut or straightforward -- these noisy, pensive, sometimes meandering songs take awhile to decipher and often feel like they're still in the process of becoming. These very qualities, however, make these songs some of the Flaming Lips most haunting and intriguing music in some time.

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Boston Globe

Embryonic is not as strange as “Zaireeka,’’ the Lips’ play-four-CDs-at-the-same-time experiment, but it’s up there. On the other hand, Embryonic is completely absorbing. It grows on you in a way that the earlier records simply cannot do.

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Entertainment Weekly

Equal parts overwhelming and intoxicating, Embryonic is a trip worth taking.

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Prefix Magazine

A certain amount of reassurance in the power of The Flaming Lips comes with each of the band's album releases, and this one is no different.

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Under The Radar

At 18 tracks and well over an hour running time, it is everything you have come to expect from The Flaming Lips. [Fall 2009, p.58]

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Drowned In Sound

What it really all boils down to is your tolerance for lengthy psyche records, which is what Embyonic undoubtedly is.

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PopMatters

Sporadically brilliant, occasionally tedious, and always challenging, it’s proof that the Fearless Freaks are back.

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Spin

Embryonic finds these wild-eyed Okies sounding even more adventurous and less eager to please than at any time since 1997's four-CD experimental sonic goof, "Zaireeka."

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Los Angeles Times

At 18 tracks, though, Embryonic includes an awful lot of filler, much of it of the meandering-soundscape variety. That stuff isn't depressing--it's just boring.

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Rolling Stone

The Lips have always been able to subvert pie-eyed whimsy with a sense of homespun beauty, and there's plenty of that here too.

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The Guardian

For all its flaws and failings, for all that you may never feel like listening to it again, it's hard not to be perversely glad Embryonic exists.

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Observer Music Monthly

Embryonic is certainly not without charm, but its title gives the game away. Largely, it's the sound of a band seeking inspiration rather than finding it.

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Slant Magazine

Embryonic, then, sounds like an over-correction to that trend, pushing the Lips's sound back into more experimental territory.

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Q Magazine

Embryonic has a cloudy feel, full of hulking, malformed basslines, distorted drums, and melodies that circle without ever ascending. [Nov 2009, p.102]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 53 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

panopticon gave it a10:
This gives Grizzly Bear a real competitor for Album of 2009.

G T gave it a6:
All of the songs are just jams. That's really cool and all, but none of the songs have a real backbone. Just some drum beat with a bass line and weird noises with Wayne "singing".

Jon F gave it a10:
Nothing they've done before compares to this, and yet, somehow it's all led up to this blast of sonic energy, a spastic mess of guitar, animal sounds, digressions on madness and a final throwing up of the hands (yes, it's over, we can say no more). This is exactly the type of miscalculated, messy, audacious album I'd hoped they'd make. They're already good, but this is something quite else.

Joey Blow gave it a9:
Weirdly fantastic. Early Floyd meets John Cage.

Martin A gave it a10:
The Flaming Lips have once again proven that they are one of the most lasting bands in the music scene today with their newest masterpiece, Embryonic.

Jimmy D gave it a9:
Awesome drums, bass, and electronics here. After a lackluster output in "Mystics," The Flaming Lips are back and better than ever.

Mike h gave it a10:
Hands down the album of the year unless someone delives a miracle by NYE. The vitality and energy here is shocking. This is a truly great rock band, and this is a truly great experimental record that takes tremendous risks.

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Embryonic

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