With their third album, TELEPATHIC SURGERY, the Flaming Lips completed their "growing up" phase. Structured around one inspired and lengthy (a staggering 20-plus minutes) masterpiece, "Hell's Angels Cracker Factory," the album is really the first cohesive statement from bandleader Wayne Coyne and his co-Lips--though, it would be the last album for the band's first solid lineup. While it is true that not all of the tracks are equally successful (several are just funny and not much else), this is the sound of a band on the verge of greatness.

Standouts include the above-mentioned epic, which features revving motorcycles, a twisted horn section, and some operatic vocals all buried under layers and layers of distorted guitars; "Chrome Plated Suicide," which name-drops Iggy Pop and features hammering percussion and a slightly phased guitar; and the brilliantly titled "Hari Krishna Stomp Wagon (Fuck Led Zeppelin)." Perhaps not the best Lips record for the uninitiated, it nonetheless provides fans with more fodder for arguments that Wayne Coyne is just about the weirdest guy with a record contract. Completists might like to know that there is a Sub Pop Records seven-inch featuring a quite different version of the album's opener, "Drug Machine in Heaven."

Genre:

• Pop / Rock