Customer Reviews

Clouds Taste Metallic

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's hard not to like the Flaming Lips. These alt-rockers take such elaborate pleasure in being over-the-top weird that's impossible not to be sucked in. Wonderfully weird titles, complex music laced with unusual instruments, and a can't-be-copied sense of wonder make this one of the best albums to come out of the 90s.

From the hypnotic crackle of "Abandoned Hospital Ship," we soar into the lower-key "Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles," the insanely lovely "Placebo Headwound" ("Where does outer space end/ it's sort of hard to imagine"), the charmingly catchy "This Here Giraffe," the harder-edged "Guy Who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saves the World" (isn't that the best title?), the more haunting "When You Smile," the delicious space-rock "They Punctured My Yolk," sizzling (no pun intended) "Lightning Strikes the Postman," and the thought-provoking, catchy "Christmas at the Zoo" ("Their wasn't any snow on Christmas eve/and I knew what I should do/I thought I'd free the animals all locked up at the zoo...")

You can tell an album is a winner if the lead singer informs you "It's just a supernatural delay." But this album is in a world of lightning-struck mailmen, talking animals, spaceships, outer space, dreams of shooting your boss, astronauts, and sparkling lights. The scifi-rock edge that was later further refined is here in its glory, tempered by more earthly material (like "Bad Days").

The brilliant basic music is enhanced by cymbals, screaming, bing-bang-booms, hums and buzzes and chimes. Anything that fits will somehow fit in. Wayne Coyne's voice is a little thin and flawed, but that only enhances the extraordinary music. The lyrics are determinedly weird and sometimes satirical, sometimes sad, sometimes very thought-provoking. But the entire album, welded together, has an aura of childlike wonder, an appreciation for the fantastical.

While "The Soft Bulletin" may remain the Flaming Lips' best album musically, "Clouds Taste Metallic" is a fantastic, playful psychedelic theme album, a sort of colorful space-rock. Highly recommended. It's an acid trip burned into a CD.

It's after listening to one of their albums like this one that, when you hear someone say "Flaiming Lips...? Oh yeah, the 'She Don't Use Jelly' dudes," you want to dump a bucket of custard on their heads. So start pouring the dairy products in the paint can because this album is truly phenomenal! It is with "Clouds Taste Metallic" that they finally get their freakshow together. The fact that something can be this weird, beautiful, warped, and melodic all at the same time gives you hope for the future of music. At least a little. With Wayne Coyne's plaintive whine (and I mean that in a GOOD way) and the joyful swells of carnival-like music, they create songs that will leave you with a bittersweet feeling inside. The Flaming Lips are always interesting to listen to and this album will give your ears something to chew on for a long time to come. It shows that pop can still be inventive AND fun at the same time. The lyrics are so unique and utterly compelling in their Brothers-Grimm-on-acid narration that you'll hear lines like "Kim's got a watermelon gun/It's the consciousness of love" and say to yourself "y'know he might have something there!" A lot of critics say this album reminds them of "Pet Sounds", it reminds me of when you were a kid and tried Pop Rocks for the first time. Those nuggets start crackling in your mouth and for a split-second you think your skull might just burst like a pinata. But then you think, "Hey, this stuff tastes great! It's really sweet and sounds neat! Who cares if my head explodes!" 'Nuff said.

Here, in all its glory, is the other end of the Lips' spectrum: hard rock guitars squalling, heavy rhytmn section, and the same great off-kilter Wayne Coyne, hamming up every song in that beautiful way of his. If you don't think you could explore the Lips after their albeit more popular "Soft Bulletin" and "Yoshimi," you might find yourself surprised. If you've never explored the Lips before, this is just as good a place to start.

Informed by the echoes of grunge, "Clouds" manages to be leagues more joyful, playful, and imaginative than most anything from that era (even quite a bit of Nirvana). For those not familiar with the band, their psychedelic leanings and Coyne's boyish, cracking voice may put you off, yet in the end try resisting a song entitled "This Here Giraffe." "The Guy who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saved the World," besides having one of the best titles ever, is an absolute hard-rock masterpiece, warm and bubbling in every way. Steve Drozd makes quick, expert work of drumming, seemingly filling every nook and cranny possible with reverbing, echoing crashes. That bands like this have such gusto and sound so powerful and confident on an indie recording is amazing. It's a shame "Clouds" hasn't received more attention. If you're delving deeper into this band, show them how much you appreciate their work and pick up this overlooked masterpiece immediately.

I never gave the Lips more than a cursory glance. I was not impressed with "Jelly", and considered them to be goofballs, especially after they appeared on 90210.

Years later, a friend lent me "The Soft Bulletin." After the first listen, I thought they had possibilities, but their singer was a bit odd sounding, and their song titles and lyrics were too weird. After another listen I was hooked. I liked it so much and eager to recruit another fan, I loaned it to a friend, who kept it for a month.

During that time, I got a hold of "Clouds Taste Metallic." It has spent so much time in my CD player that it'll probably wear out soon.

From the opening words of "The Abandoned Hospital Ship" I knew I was in for a wild ride. Why doesn't anyone else make music like this? A carnival of sounds combine to make an aural feast that puts one's faith back in the human race. It makes one realize there are people dedicated to making great music and not just putting out radio-friendly pop-vomit-drivel for money.

The simple complexity of the music is astounding. There are no duds on this album, each track is a gem. Little things like the drum bell during the "chorus" on "Psychiatric Explorations...", the film projector in the background of the first track, and the multitude of "instruments" used to create such a sound are a joy. Each listen brings a new discovery.

The guitar work is fabulous. It is used as a true instrument, not just something to pound out chords and solos. The variety of guitar sounds is truly inspiring. The drums at times sound as if John Bonham has been resurrected. The bass is a thick foundation as well as an integral melodic machine. Combined with the myriad sounds of keyboards, handclaps, xylophone, angelic choirs, fuzz etc, it makes for a mix so heady, it leaves one gasping for a breath of sanity.

"Clouds Taste Metallic" can make you laugh, touch your soul and fill you with wonder. I don't think any other band can come close to what the Lips have achieved here. No one has the bravery or insanity to be this weird yet compelling and comforting at the same time.

This is not standard rock and roll. It rocks, but if you are looking for something like you've heard before, forget it. Flaming Lips are an acquired taste, and a heavily addictive one.

A warning: at first listen, this album may seem impenetrable. It's probably not the best choice for a first Lips album. It is probably the best, albeit most complex and difficult of all thier "standard" albums (read: excluding "Zaireeka", of course). It starts with the clicking of an 8mm projector, and goes on to progress though some of the most pyrotechnic, warped, dense, yet oddly hummable guitar-pop ever committed to tape. The music comes in layers, found sounds, every instrument immaginable, Wayne Coyne's deranged choir-boy singing... maybe not instantly catchy, but there is an attention to songcraft here... it's not just an experimental blob, it's also a pop record. Every nanosecond of sound has obviously been carefully considered, and it has drawn numereous comparisons to "Pet Sounds" for its desnity and attention to detail.

Ultimately, "Clouds" is more about sound than songs, but "Abandoned Hospital Ship", "Brainville", "This Here Girrafe" and "Xmas at the Zoo" are probably the stand out cuts. The stongest impression this gives is that Wyane Coyne and co. are not *trying* to be weird, they just are. Like the recordings of Roscoe Holcombe or Dock Boggs, these songs are not strange because thier creator tried to make them so, they just *are*. You get the sense that these guys aren't kidding. They are describing honestly a new world and inviting the listeners in. You get the honest sense of scattered glimpses into an alternate reality. Much less commerial than the "Soft Bulletin", more pathological than "Transmissions from The Sattelite Heart", this baroque, off-kilter collection stands as the Lips finest hour. The Flaming Lips are one of the great bands in the history of pop music, and will eventually come to be appreciated by rock critics as one of the few true innovators of the genre.

With the inimitable masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips were launched into a level of success far greater than they had ever experienced beforehand (minus the whole "She Don't Use Jelly" thing). Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, as a result, was one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of 2002, and it of course failed to disappoint, being one of the best albums of the decade so far. With a commercial on VH1 featuring a track from Yoshimi and Wayne Coyne's appearance as a presenter at the MTV movie awards, the Lips are undeniably in the public eye, if not exactly a household name. What many people fail to realize, however, is that the band has actually been around since the 80s, and has put out some positively great material before The Soft Bulletin took the world by storm. Clouds Taste Metallic is the finest and most essential example of their lesser-known work.

Anyone familiar with the Bulletin or Yoshimi will be quick to praise the band's wide-eyed, quirky, yet profoundly artistic spaceyness and seemingly total detachment from what one considers the normal universe, musical or otherwise. Both albums reach ridiculous heights of psyche-pop glory, incorporating strings, keys, electronic effects, and huge vocal harmonies to create their matchless, yet accessibly poppy atmosphere. These bombastic (in a good way) musical digressions that now typify the Lips' sound are, to perhaps the surprise of some, nearly entirely absent from the earlier work, such as Clouds Taste Metallic, when they instead opted to employ the rather simplistic formula of guitars, bass, and drums to create their art.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its unquestionably rawer sound, Clouds Taste Metallic is a fine addition to anyone into the Flaming Lips. "The Abandoned Hospital Ship" starts the album on a quieter, piano-driven note before exploding into a glorious muddle of grinding guitars, Bonham-evoking drums, and church bells. The raw excess and magnificent bombast seldom wane throughout Clouds. When the chorus of "Psychiatric Exploration of the Fetus With Needles" hits, the only accurate description of the experience is a deafening ecstasy. Other tracks, such as "This Here Giraffe" and "Brainville," offer the listener a more relaxed milieu, but one that is still fuzzy, spaced-out, and catchy like nothing else.

Of course, for the more adventurous fan, "Kim's Watermelon Gun" and "Lightning Strikes the Postman" are dizzying, nearly overwhelming tracks that are just as likely to inspire headaches as evoke euphoria. No matter how crunching the guitars or pounding the drums, however, Wayne Coyne's thin, but perfectly suitable voice floats beautifully over every song, making even the latter accessible and listenable. It's an interesting dichotomy, and one that makes the Lips such a stellar, unforgettable band.

I cannot recommend this band (or this album) enough.

When I first bought Clouds taste Metallic, I had never heard of the Flaming Lips, but i was intrigued by the name, and having listened primarily to Acid Rock, I gave it a try. This is a disc that grows on you. My first listen I thought it okay, but the more I listened to it, the more I liked it, until, songs like Brainville, and Bad Days, and Evil WIll Prevail became my favorites. I haven't bought The Soft Bulletin, but it's on my Christmas List.

Clouds Taste Metallic is the last record by the guitar driven version of the Flaming Lips. The reason for this is that Clouds is the last Lips album to be recorded with Ronald Jones (guitar) as a member of the band. Jones' ability to manipulate brilliant layers of feedback that somehow retain melodic texture is the perfect compliment to the psychedelic vision of Wayne Coyne. Add to this the blossoming musical genius of Steven Drozd and you come away with a psychedelic rock masterpiece of epic proportions. This is the Flaming Lips at their most mighty. You need to own this record.

As with anything great, it's strange on the first listen. You're not quite sure if you like what you're hearing, but you're certainly intrigued. By the third listen you've kind of wrapped your brain around it. A few days later you're addicted. Eventually you can't believe the album ever sounded weird, and instead you feel only disgust for nearly all other (utterly inferior) pop music. Time flies when you listen to CLOUDS TASTE METALLIC. It's one of those albums so brilliant that when the 10th song rolls around, it seems like you just pressed 'play,' and you feel a tiny regret that there are only a few songs left.

Innovative disk,
they push the envelope here,
and redefine Rock.