“The Terror" is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... there is no mercy killing,” lead singer of The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne said once in an interview. Clearly, Coyne’s last relationship did not end well; either his lover left and ruined him for all others, or she turned out to be a flesh–eating alien from outer space who tried to eat his heart out. At the very least, the band must have been partly inspired by the supernatural, because “The Terror” is such a strange, hypnotic auditory experience. Tracks like “Try to Explain” and “You Lust” sound as if every electronic baseline carried with it the vague wobble of a theremin. Either a fever dream or a crazy person’s diary put to music, this album's frenetic and charged with anxious energy. But it’s also mesmerizing the same way crazy people are mesmerizing.
Grade: A Sounds best when: You're about to go apehit a lá Jack Nicholson in The Shining and you need a soundtrack for your murder spree. 99-Cent Download: “Butterfly, How Long it Takes to Die”
