Album Review: The Flaming Lips Continue To Warp Minds In Oczy Mlody
The record opens with the self-titled “Oczy Mlody” that sounds like your spirit has been dropped into a lava lamp that has been dropped into space. The idea, like the song, is a perfect notion for the album; molding blobs of color spread across the stars formed in your mind according to the ever-changing moods of The Flaming Lips. For the band, music as a sporadic, emotional compass that could lead you north into the light of your soul or south into its darkness.While they are known for soundscapes that rival the sun in brightness, I enjoyed the slumbering, eclipse-like sounds that open the album. In songs like, “How” and “Nidgy Nie” the band is darkly introspective. The first half of the album could have easily soundtracked Doctor Strange’s journey into self-reflection. Using synths and guitar chords, The Flaming Lips present an inquisitiveness over life’s machinations with Wayne Coyne sounding like a vocal mash-up between John Legend and George Harrison.
Coyne is exceptional as a spiritual vocalist. He plays with his range and annotations to show the curiosity that inspires a person to look within, and it his capacities and charm as a singer further Oczy Mlody as an opera of sorts. He draws in the drama/ drug induction he wants viewers to feel as they go on a musical journey with him, which is a pretty, trippy journey. I marvel at the lulls of his voice because only Coyne, as a singer, could make this album work. For a lesser convinced artist the album could flatline, especially because its pacing is slow and drawn. Yet, Coyne is confident and owns his persona as a front-man who bleeds acid, mushrooms, and any others world-building hallucinogen. He is all about seeing life according to another life, and Oczy Mlody feels exactly like that. Each song flows into the other with vivid imagination subtly painting pictures in listeners’ minds like, in “One Night While Hunting For Faeries and Witches and Wizards To Kill”, “The Castle”, and “Galaxy I Sink”. These three tracks are in the central heart of the album, and further ingrain the storybook narrative The Flaming Lips wish to achieve. Yet, by the end of the record, their attempt at a fleshed fairytale comes forward in their choice of arrangements more than their lyrics. Their lullaby harmonies and sleepy basslines inspire listeners to dream of their own fairytales more than follow the specific one The Flaming Lips wish to offer.
Sometimes, you wish to go for one thing and you end up with another, but even the unplanned can be excellent. Now, more than ever, The Flaming Lips have perfected their ability to alter listeners’ moods and dreams, which is what listeners want from them: mindful alteration. In Oczy Mlody, the Flaming Lips offer their listeners a drug that pulls them into the most frenetic, crazy surrealism they will ever have, but they do it in a way they did not expect. Yes, Oczy Mlody is like a quietly grand opera, but The Flaming Lips are not the leads or mystical guides to it specific narration. Instead, they are the soundtrack to the narrative you build in your own mind through Oczy Mlody. For More Information On The Flaming Lips and to Buy Oczy Mlody Click Here.
