Make of that what you will, but as much aesthetic consistency has been applied to this album, it’s not enough to save it from its burgeoning mass of pure mediocrity. Yet, when really delving into what has been done here, there’s a consistency and a focus that, while constraining and predictable, is also new. Oczy Mlody is technically a concept album, a paint-by-numbers affair involving drugs and the collective unconsciousness and unicorns and other inane paraphernalia for the sake of weirdness.

But if Oczy Mlody and recent trends indicate anything, it’s that The Flaming Lips seem a bit more complacent to explore a singular idea, instead of engaging in their former antics as a hyper-weird noise-rock outfit. It’s perhaps becoming more readily apparent as the band progresses through their career. In recent memory, The Flaming Lips have had some odd incidents in terms of reconciling a vast catalog composed of those diverse and opposing styles and themes. From the grindingly noisy and raucous impact of Hear It Is to the borderline shoegaze elements crammed on top of poppy psychedelia that was Hit to Death in the Future Head, to the baroque masterpiece of The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips have spanned a career that is fueled by dynamism.

Throughout the long and complicated history of The Flaming Lips, they’ve managed to simultaneously embody and produce an insane amount of diverse musical experiments.

The flaming lips oczy mlody