“Before the confetti cannons and sci-fi Day-Glo-pop operettas, the Flaming Lips made great acid-nightmare rock records about the high cost of transcendence. The Terror is that darkness returned: a gripping middle-age-mystic crisis with rude, cosmic-German electronics crowding Wayne Coyne’s tremulous boy-explorer voice. The beauty is fleeting but piquant. A choral glow cuts past the clatter and seiz”
“The Flaming Lips' unrelenting new album retains Embryonic's weighty mood but deconstructs the instrumental bombast into skeletal, mechanical forms. Where its 2009 antecedent played on themes of environmental destruction, The Terror deals in personal turmoil-- loneliness, depression, and anxiety.”
“On their latest full-length, The Flaming Lips bring vivid sounds and a strong aesthetic, but don't offer the songs, execution, or variety to back it up.”
