Farting Ships 'Catatonic' (2009)
I was not planning to hear this, but someone whose opinion I respect sent me a link, and I am pleasantly surprised (so far, about halfway through and no sign of Karen O yet =S).
First of all, too many people like the Flaming Lips, and it's not that i'm an elitist, it's just that if that many people enjoy something in this day and age there must be something wrong with it; and their last two albums were pretty horrible - happy clappy, churchy, annoying - like the Polyphonic Spree. Dinner party psychedelia. Anti-Bush lyrics are all very well, but I am one of those twats who thinks 'Hit to Death in the Future Head' is twice the album 'Yoshimi' is.
'Embryonic' takes the rich sonic palette they have developed making their Disney albums and applies it to a self-indulgent psychedelic mess, just like the old stuff. The best pop U-turn in recent memory, I give the first half of this album a gold star. And given how I felt about Jesus Coyne until an hour ago that is quite significant