You press play, and the eerie opening notes of Fight Test swell around your ears. “The test begins now,” they sing, an immediate warning to those who are not ready to explore the deepest reaches of their own soul, poetically described as “sunbeams” and “starlight.” The Flaming Lips are going to take us on a journey that they disguise as self-involved, but in reality we are the subjects of the test, and the test does not end until the last note of the last song.

As we are drawn in to the second track, we become the robot in ‘One More Robot,’ merely pretending that we can love, and comforting ourselves in vain. The allegorical ‘Yoshimi Battles… Part 1’ is an instruction manual for unwitting listener subjected to battle with our own emotions. The Flaming Lips are right: we don’t know what is coming, and we don’t believe them. Whatever is coming, we doubt we have the strength to defeat it. Nonetheless, we are launched headfirst into the nihilistic wordless celebration that is ‘Yoshimi Battles… Part 2.’ We wonder how the sound of our own screams made it onto the track. We are even more convinced we cannot defeat our deadly opponents: our own emotions, and time itself. 

‘In The Morning of the Magicians’ soothes the soul, previously disquieted with the furore of ‘Yoshimi Battles… Part 2.’ Though the time signature catches us off-guard like walking up a dark staircase and expecting a step when there isn’t one, the arresting simplicity of the melody transports us to the time when we were seventeen and staring out the backseat car-window on a rainy day. Only now we have a greater understanding of the fickle fleeting nature of time. Yet deep down we know that that understanding will never be enough. Our present lives will perpetually fuel future nostalgia.

In light of this dreamlike realisation, The Flaming Lips masterfully provide a simultaneously seamless and jarring transition into ‘Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell.’ The ironic poignancy of the repeated whispered line “I must have been dreaming” essentialises this between-waking-and-sleeping state that the listener finds themselves in. The invigored sound of the drums firmly but gently shakes us awake, wickedly smiling in the knowledge that the one question we have on our lips is exactly the question they are asking us: ‘Are you a Hypnotist??’ Knowing that they have us in the palm of their hands, they press us deeper into our own psyche with ‘It’s Summertime,’ forcing us to recognise that we are indeed projecting our inner sadness onto everything around us. But it’s okay, they understand how we feel, and The Flaming Lips believe that one day soon we will be able to see that it is summertime. 

Renewed and revitalised in their own triumphant insight and hold on our emotional state, they exuberantly ask us if we can accept that we can master our own happiness, even in the face of death. By the time the key changes in ‘Do You Realise,’ the listener is starting to become self-aware. Maybe we can be happy; maybe we do have the most beautiful face! Their job mostly done, The Flaming Lips self-congratulate with ‘All We Have is Now,’ knowing that we finally believe it as much as they do. Irony abounds as they tease “as logic stands you couldn’t meet a man who’s from the future,” knowing full well that that man from the future is The Flaming Lips themselves, with their supernatural insight into our lives, beliefs, and emotions. The past doesn’t matter. The future doesn’t matter. We matter and they matter. It’s us and The Flaming Lips. So let’s dance an alien dance once more to ‘Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon.’ Am I crying? I know you are.