Review: The Flaming Lips’ The Terror

Art and biography are two very separate domains. But listening to ‘The Terror’, the 13th album by Oklahoman wonder-merchants the Flaming Lips, the (possibly scurrilous) internet rumour that frontman Wayne Coyne may have split from his wife of 25 years casts a shadow.

Before the Lips became indie rock’s life-affirmers-in-chief, they were ardent psychedelicists, ones on nodding terms with the abyss.

‘The Terror’ peers over the edge again, not finding so much comfort in dawn (‘Look the Sun is Rising’) or butterflies (‘Butterfly, How Long it Takes to Die’). Immersive, internal and headier than Heady Fwends (the two were recorded simultaneously), ‘The Terror’ is by no means a bad record. It’s just the low that comes with the highs.