Transmissions From the Satellite Heart

After lauded indie albums, The Flaming Lips debuted on Warner Bros. with 1991's Hit To Death In The Future Head. Transmissions From The Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic followed. 1999's The Soft Bulletin topped numerous year-end best-of lists and helped rank the band among the most influential in the world. 2002's Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots ranked #4 in Spin and #11 in NME on their end-of-yearlists, and won a Grammy®.

Sometimes it seems as if there's every other band in America, and then there's the Flaming Lips. The Norman, Oklahoma, quartet makes modern rock that doesn't sound like anyone else; head music, they'd have called it in psychedelia's heyday, weird soundscapes that conjure the bizarre alternate universe on the other side of the funhouse mirror. Transmissions, their second major-label release after a long indie apprenticeship has a mellower feel than early fans might expect, with lots of acoustic guitar and dreamy interludes to shame More-era Pink Floyd, but it's no less weird than their last two efforts. Strange sounds float in and out of the mix, and Wayne Coyne's twisted hick vocals are convincingly demented. Coyne's lyrics tend toward a Dadaist stream of consciousness with occasional forays into junk culture; this is familiar modern rock territory, but songs such as "She Don't Use Jelly," "Chewin the Apple of Your Eye," and "Be My Head" are more effective and less annoying than the would-be gonzo efforts of Frank Black and Sonic Youth because they're catchier and less pretentious. The Flaming Lips may be transmitting to the satellites, but when all is said and done, they live in Oklahoma. --Jim DeRogatis