Clouds Taste Metallic is the Flaming Lips’ dirtiest
record—a mess of loops, absurd noises, and static violating
unapologetically catchy riffs. Released in 1995, two years after
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and the MTV phenomenon of
“She Don’t Use Jelly,” Clouds was their seventh record, and
supporting it nearly caused to the band to combust; tensions accrued
during recording and the year of touring that followed helped send
guitarist Ronald Jones packing. As a result, the Lips were never the
same again, both in lineup and sound. The album proved to be both
destructive and a major breakthrough. It also shoved the remaining
members of the band into a fit of experimentation they have yet to calm
down from.

The record opens with a three-minute curiosity titled “The Abandoned
Hospital Ship.” The song begins with what sounds like an old
reel-to-reel projector firing up, Wayne Coyne’s nasal pitch is
distorted to near oblivion as he sings, “Well, it took some time/’Cause
it’s a lot/God, it’s a bunch/It’s such a big, old, black golden
buzz…” A simple tune from piano and guitar accompanies the words,
which seem almost apologetic in their delivery—until, at 1:43,
the gears suddenly grind dramatically into a beat-down of noise. As a
song, “Hospital Ship” is not really a song at all—mostly
instrumental, all-building freak-out with no real structure—but
it serves as a perfect precursor for the 12 unruly tracks to
follow.

“Lightning Strikes the Postman” starts out climbing and threatens to
never stop. “Kim’s Watermelon Gun” pummels with an almighty racket with
few reprieves. The most challenging track on the record, “Psychiatric
Explorations of the Fetus with Needles,” flirts with being outright
unlistenable, its layers so distorted you might wonder if your speakers
have blown. Every song here is so intricately assembled that the record
is at constant risk of collapsing into incomprehension. That
precariousness, along with the fact that it just plain rocks, earns
Clouds Taste Metallic heavy rotation from every respectable
Flaming Lips fan, old or recent.