The Terror

The Flaming Lips - The Terror
Critic Score
Based on 44 reviews
2013 Ratings: #243 / 1115
User Score
Based on 317 ratings
2013 Rank: #253
Liked by 20 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

91
A.V. Club

The Terror is the sound of The Flaming Lips going from a group experience to an internal monologue, the perfect record for any fan who has ever felt like the band could use two “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”s for every “Race For The Prize.”

90
SPIN

By facing down the exhausting nature of depression and loneliness (seriously, Coyne sounds so depleted that he can barely muster the dejection to sing, and yes, that's a compliment), the Lips have retroactively strengthened their entire artistic credo.

90
No Ripcord

It at least represents the culmination of all of The Flaming Lips’ oddball experiments and elongated, anti-sonorous jams into a single, abrasively beautiful cacophony. 

90
Consequence of Sound

The energy poured into The Terror, however, reveals a band that doesn’t mind sacrificing all they’ve earned for a fresh thought.

85
Paste

It’s a different record for The Flaming Lips, but an exceptionally interesting one. It takes the same ideas they’ve been exploring for years, but this time they’re examining the other side of the coin.

80
Exclaim!

At turns noisy, wistful and dark, The Terror is a beguiling record that's as beautiful as it is frightening.

80
Slant Magazine

There's always been a relentless optimism hidden behind the Flaming Lips' unique brand of pop experimentalism ... Which makes their understated 13th album, The Terror, an evocation of a bleak, post-apocalyptic future, such a striking contrast.

80
Alternative Press
The nine songs ooze out with floating bits of atmospherics and noise appearing and receding in the murk while hypnotizing listeners via insistent synth and drum loops.
80
Mojo
Wayne Coyne's prolix tendencies have been stripped down into somber considerations of lust, mortality and universal chaos.
80
The Independent
Beautiful, blissful melodies are buried in there.
80
Q Magazine

The Terror is dark and experimental, full of synths and loops that owe more to Krautrock than guitar bands.

80
AllMusic

It's not easy to face up to and present the worst parts of being alive, much less in a way that's artistically pleasing or relevant. The Lips don't make it sound easy, which is why The Terror is so powerful.

80
Drowned in Sound

After it burrows its way under your skin, The Terror does genuinely feel like something of a dark masterpiece, the album you’ll stick on to discredit anyone who tries to claim The Flaming Lips are lacking in depth or darkness.

80
Tiny Mix Tapes

The Terror may be The Flaming Lips’ most concise statement to date. But it’s not clear whether they’re at the deep end of an oscillation or whether this is the logical end of all their work.

80
NME

This record won’t have thousands of hands propelling Coyne above their heads in a plastic ball when the band tour it. It’s the sound of the man inside the ball feeling an unknowable fear and trying to accept it.

80
The 405

With The Terror, the visual side is in the imagery the music creates: and its sound is cohesive, powerful and emotive.

78
Sputnikmusic

It’s their most cohesive record since Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and its eternally exhausted realizations and powerful, if demanding, passages confirm that the band is as tight and concentrated as they’ve ever been.

78
Pitchfork

The Terror may be the Flaming Lips' most demanding album to date, but it’s also the most sonically of a piece, immediately thrusting you into its dense miasma and seamlessly dissolving one track into one another

77
Beats Per Minute

There aren’t many other albums that sound like The Terror, and while clearly a work of The Flaming Lips there is enough that is new here for old and new fans alike to engage with it.

70
Uncut
As with most "difficult" albums, the more one listens, the more forgiving they become.
70
DIY

Wilfully bleak, wilfully obtuse, wilfully awkward and wilfully ugly.

60
PopMatters

Here, Coyne transforms his persona, and the band follows suit, breaking down and punching holes in the explorations they’ve dug into over the past few years.

60
Classic Rock

This is a party where happiness is most definitely not on the guest list. It’s still awesome, of course, just don’t expect to enjoy it.

60
The Observer

The Terror is by no means a bad record. It's just the low that comes with the highs.

60
The Needle Drop
On their latest full-length, The Flaming Lips bring vivid sounds and a strong aesthetic, but don't offer the songs, execution, or variety to back it up.
60
American Songwriter
The Flaming Lips return with one of their most challenging, yet cohesive records to date.
50
Entertainment Weekly
Artists from Radiohead to Liars have explored this territory already, and better.
Stankysauce
88

Look… The Sun is Rising. Wow what an incredible intro. Much less poppy than previous Lips stuff, and instead they went for something more atmospheric and repetitive. Also very bleak, like damn this shit is desolate and depressing.
Be Free, A Way also sounds kind of ambient even. Just as spooky and sad as the last track too. I love the ambient synth textures here, the odd percussion is really cool too.
I also love the tension building marching snares all over You Lust. The long winded ... read more

andiov1
97

Wondrous masterpiece, super underrated
The whole sound of it is just so otherworldly and beautiful, it's hard to describe

MasterCrackfox
83

A wholly underrated effort from The Flaming Lips that serves as an appropriate turn from their previous proper LP Embryonic. Where Embryonic saw the group traveling deeper down a realm of psychedelic noise and bizarre instrumentation more for the purpose of serious musicianship rather than quirky fun and poppy hits, The Terror utilizes both psychedelia along with ambiance to go in an even deeper, darker side of their experimentation for the sake of emotional development.

For those who know ... read more

Cobalt6
87

Im terrified

depechemode4lif
84

A project that is easily their greatest display of atmosphere and electronics yet. One of their most ambitious albums and while sometimes the ambition can overtake the execution, the artistry displayed in enough to elevate the album

FunkyBlood9696
67

Flaming Lips is a band very well known for taking left turns any time they can, and being one of the most cutting edge Psychedelic Rock groups because of it
And that could be chalked up to a variety of things, their unique alien presentation, wonderful vocals, colorful instrumentals, as well as on some level good song-writing quality, but on "The Terror", the last one seems to go away in place of them making their most abstract, moodiest and transcedental album yet, which sadly only ... read more

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Added on: January 24, 2013