2013

True to its title, The Terror is indeed a woozy fright of a record, one long song in nine parts, like a padlocked dream with no beginning or end. Yet where 2009’s elaborate Embryonic offered the occasional break and variation, The Terror provides no such escape. Its tempo creeps along at little more than a crawl, underscoring a level of unsettlement never quite felt from a Flaming Lips record, and that’s saying something. Imagine a venomous cousin of The Soft Bulletin’s “Spiderbite Song,” and you’re getting close.