4 Out Of 5 Stars
Engrossing. That's one of the few ways I can describe The Flaming Lips' psychedelic downer of "The Terror." Weaving synthesizers and electronic sounds back and forth into a soundscape that will not let you escape its trauma, this is an album that has an equal only in the likes of Pink Floyd or Radiohead's "Kid A." But where Radiohead broke their minimalism into separate songs, "The Terror" plays all the way through like a whole piece, and a black hole of a piece it is.It's hard to believe the Flaming Lips have been around for almost 30 years and are still capable of surprising their devout audience. The fuzzy fun of "At War With The Mystics" or the space opera of "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" were adventures that were often punctuated with oddball pop, but you'll find nothing like that on "The Terror." "Love is always something, something you should fear" is one of the first lines on the album, and things get even more despairing from there. Pain and unhappiness are the major themes of this bleak album, with death and anger at almost every corner.
Yet, despite that anger, the music never rises beyond anything but a meandering riff here and there (like on the ear snagging "You Lust") and lead Lip Wayne Coyne's falsetto repeating hypnotically sad choruses like "you're not alone, you are alone." "The Terror" is not an album for the seriously depressed, or someone looking for the dizzy bliss you'll find on other Flaming Lips CD's. It's a great headphone album, because of all the mixed texturing, but that only draws out the overall unhappiness of hearing a disembodied voice telling you "you will see how long it takes to die." Bordering on a masterpiece. "The Terror" is a depressant that, once you listen to it, you'll have a hard time escaping.
