The Flaming Lips
Oczy Mlody
(Warner Bros.)

The Flaming Lips have evolved into quite a number of incarnations over their 34 years together and their new album, Oczy Mlody, seems to be the start of another new direction. The album is not a total departure, but the influence of guest vocalist Miley Cyrus, who appears on the closing track, “We a Famly,” is clear with a bit of a pop sensibility blending together with the band’s psychedelic/experimental weirdness, this time with a more ambient edge. The results are mostly positive. Oczy Mlody begins with the great instrumental title track, which is then followed up by a spacey “How??” that launches a loose storyline for the album about drugs, but all of the album’s lyrics feel more like a stream of consciousness than any specific narrative. Some of the noteworthy moments on the album include “There Should Be Unicorns,” which features Reggie Watts who is a great fit for the strange theme, but unfortunately the song doesn’t make use of his full skill set. “Sunrise (Eyes of the Young)” is a reworking of Miley Cyrus’ version with a similar feel heading in a different direction. The album trades in the Flaming Lips’ anthemic and melodic sounds for more mellow, atmospheric music merged with abstracted lyrics that ultimately feel more like a journey than a destination.