The Flaming Lips’ ‘Oczy Mlody’ Is a Modern Psychedelic Rock Opera

Stephanie Hernandez

Psych-rock veterans The Flaming Lips are not known for staying in one place for too long. Alternating between an eclectic mix of indie rock and electronic sounds, The Lips pucker up at any chance to experiment with their sound. So it is against this backdrop that the 14th album, “Oczy Mlody” arrives – with another appearance by Miley Cyrus, a frequent collaborator. (She sends pictures of herself while peeing to Lips leader Wayne Coyne, he said recently.) Combining hip hop, prog rock and dance music, this rock opera is a psychedelic swirl of intriguing new pathways. The Flaming Lips have spent the last 30 years orchestrating wonderfully complex lyrical visions layered over creative rock jams. “Oczy Mlody,” though, is more stripped back, and this more relaxed approach does put a fresh gloss on the tip of the Lips’ tongue.

Drawing musical inspiration from the unlikely pairing of Syd Barrett and A$AP Rocky, frontman Wayne Coyne uses this sonic set up to construct a loosely held together but highly entertaining fiction to pair alongside it. The tale features a nominal drug that upon consumption places the user under a three-month sleep, where they then dream of having sexual relations with unicorns until they wake. In case you forgot why you love the Flaming Lips, that should be enough of a reminder. The storytelling is anchored down by their initially coldly constructed, minimalist soundscape. Eventually building on its slow burn, the addition of steady drumming, dramatic strings and fuzzed out synths help create a lush texture weaving the twelve tracks together. The juxtaposition of this larger-than-life plot placed next to these arrangements makes “Oczy Mlody” that much easier to get lost in. The fever dream of “One Night While Hunting for Faeries and Witches and Wizards to Kill” spills into the hazy “There Should Be Unicorns,” the funky “Nigdy Nie (Never No)” and the effervescent simplicity of “We A Family” help lift the mood. Quite possibly the Lips’ most cohesive album in a long time, “Oczy Mlody” inches the group closer to a mainstream radio hit.

The record starts off with a hauntingly sparse landscape. It is definitely a slow build and not music for the impatient. These indie-rock chameleons use a wide range of genres to keep their elongated rock opera going. Bringing artists such as Cyrus and Reggie Watts along for their fanciful trip, this kaleidoscopic record creates a lucid dreaminess.

“Oczy Mlody” is on Apple Music Jan. 13.