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Rating: Let's start with a fact: this is the best album by the Flaming Lips. Enthusiasts of the group have waited in vain for almost two decades to hear an album from our beloved freakout (yes indeed!) from Oklahoma that possessed the same monumental solidity. Despite following the band in its evolution, many have lost all hope of witnessing the miracle again (incidentally, these days the new F.L. album, “At War With The Mystics”, is coming out). In the midst of the pre-grunge explosion, F.L. released their “difficult third album” that closed the circle of the '80s and definitively paved the way for the myriad of rock experimenters of the '90s (Motorpsycho at the forefront, deemed by many to be the worthy continuers of our heroes' work). As soon as the record starts, it launches with "Drug Machine in Heaven," something similar to hopping on a Harley and spreading terror for two minutes on a pedestrian island on a peaceful metropolitan Saturday afternoon. Pure Detroit sound turned Barrett style. It continues with "Right Now," one of those guitar riffs you can't forget, a rhythm section that crushes: constant tension. The lyrics describe a state of psychedelic disorientation, but to some, it seemed like an anti-militarist anthem. At this point, someone reminds Michael that it's time to get up, and he does so with a guitar solo that's as acid as it can get, Uncle Jimi permitting: just enough time to fade out, and Wayne Coyne’s abrasive guitar kicks in with the most beautiful track on the album, that "Chrome Plated Suicide" where if you don't cry, you might as well seriously consider suicide: "If all my dreams were a tidal wave And every day was Christmas We could spend our lives in the drip At the edge of the world Cause love does things that you can't see It's like telepathic surgery And cuts and scrapes just like Iggy Pop thrown in a hole If you take away my nerves And leave just my words Love would be the best thing in the world…". Forgive me for quoting the lyrics, but I couldn't help it; for those who know the Flamin', it’s no surprise that their lyrics are as beautiful as their music, and this track confirms what has been said. “Miracle on 42nd Street” and “Hell's Angel's Cracker Factory” are the most acid pieces on the album, and you just have to listen to them to understand the F.L.’s point of no return. “U.F.O. Story” begins like a studio chat between the musicians (by the way, Michael Stipe is also mentioned...) and evolves into a noise pastiche that culminates in the lyricism of a piano that no longer knows what to play: it’s difficult to find four notes of the same intensity in today’s rock scene. Someone’s rush introduces “Redneck School of Technology,” another great rock performance of our heroes—yes, rock, period; sharp guitars, direct vocals, dry rhythms, and even a harmonica. Priceless. The last four songs could very well be part of a suite and add little (aside from a citation of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”) to what’s previously heard, but they are indispensable because it's directly from these notes that F.L. will take steps for their subsequent albums. “Begs and Haching” is the worthy sublimation of the group's sound, raw and accomplished like every one of their attempts. Finally, the applause, well-deserved. In this masterpiece, you'll find echoes of any band that has treaded the stage since the birth of rock 'n' roll: this album oozes tears, sweat, and blood from every single note and even from the silences. Many rock journalists called “Telepathic Surgery” a concept album, and this definition would sound pompous for many bands of that period, but just like other pearls of the era, what we find in this album is the same attitude with which Sonic Youth, Pixies, and Hüsker Dü created “Daydream Nation”, “Surfer Rosa”, and “Warehouse: Songs and Stories”—in their own ways, all concept albums, albeit exquisitely punk in nature. It's pointless to add that "Telepathic Surgery" still works after two decades, and, apocalypse permitting, no one will be able to remove this album from my personal top ten, but above all, no one will be able to heal the scars it has opened definitively in my soul and in who knows how many other freakout souls. Highly recommended.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Right Now (03:57)
The daylight rips at my naked thoughts
A hundred miles an hour
But I'm still lost right now
We think we know just who we are
But sometimes I think we've gone too far
Right now ... right now
In my head all my engines die
And it's scraping pieces out of the sky right now
Once I thought I had figured it out
In dream I knew what it was all about
My life and times are lyin' on the floor
I ain't never walkin' through there no more
And I'm walking down this highway
I don't know the year, I don't know the day
03 Michael, Time to Wake Up (00:29)
Mchael, it is time to wake up
Sleepy Head
It's time to wake up
You have slept too long
In the darkness of night,
And now it is time to awake
And see your girlfriend...
What a fright...
10 Redneck School of Technology (02:56)
I'm draggin' everybody down
But being healthy's just a big drag anyway
I'm startin' to reconsider things
I'm gonna live like a trucker without his uppers every day
Me and mom sit and talk all night about
Peace and love and politics
And the millionaires we'll be someday
My momma told me something once
She told me something, I forget what it was
Ronny Van Zandt's ghost lives inside of me
But he just sits there
I don't know what he does
I'm leaving everything behind
Except my mind and my valentine if I got time
Gonna go to some redneck town where
They hold class in the middle of the night
If my school had burned to the ground
I would've gotten smarter sooner
And you know that's right.
12 The Spontaneous Combustion of John (00:53)
It's such a shame, Johnny smokes
And his eyes are full of fire
Like the first time Captain Marvel zapped him
Right between the eyes
14 Begs and Achin' (04:15)
I see ya flyin' in your UFO all the time Crash and burnin' in my backyard It's begs and achin' all the time I ridin' on your brainwaves Surfin in a dream I wish you'd save those dreams for me I see you flyin' in your UFO all the time I don't remember what day it was Begs and achin' all the time
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Other reviews
By freakout
This is the best Flaming Lips album.
'If you don’t cry at "Chrome Plated Suicide", you might as well seriously consider suicide.'
By Rooftrampler92
"'Telepathic Surgery' is the diamond of neo-psychedelia."
"A difficult dish to digest, but varied and full of original insights."
