Flaming Lips dial down the whimsy on "Embryonic"

NEW YORK (Billboard) - In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, September 14, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne was signing autographs after his band performed at upstate New York's All Tomorrow's Parties festival when a burly young fan approached him with a length of industrial strap. Coyne recognized it as one of his own, used for tying down equipment like the large cannons that shoot confetti into the crowd throughout the band's stage show. The fan told Coyne the strap had been shot out of the cannon and hit him in the chest, but he calmly handed it back, got his shirt signed and walked away.

This isolated incident symbolizes a few things about the Lips -- their fans love them with a devotion that borders on insanity, the group's live shows are such spectacles that flying straps might very well be part of the festivities, and they're one of the luckier bands around.

The group started in the early '80s and has survived addiction, in-fighting and a holdup at a Long John Silver's seafood restaurant; had an alt-rock radio hit, "She Don't Use Jelly," in 1993; and played the Peach Pit on "Beverly Hills, 90210." Critics love them, audiences adore them, and they sell albums. 2002's "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" has sold 570,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and follow-up "At War With the Mystics" has sold 220,000.

Now the band is preparing to roll out a new album, "Embryonic," due October 13 on Warner Bros. The 18-track set initially was conceived as a double album but will be sold in one- and two-CD packages. "We realized that as much as we wanted to do the double album, all the songs fit on one disc," Lips manager Scott Booker says. "We wanted to keep the costs down for our younger fans, and we'll also be releasing a double disc with added content, a fur-covered double album for collectors and a vinyl version."

Coyne describes "Embryonic" as "slightly disturbed, but pleasant," adding, "We tried to make it feel like, 'If you like two songs, you'll like the whole record' and 'If you don't like two songs, you probably won't like any of this.'" The record has echoes of acts like Can and Joy Division and sounds cooler and less whimsical than previous efforts, especially on the opener "Convinced of the Hex."