After a run of their three most successful albums to date over the last decade, Oklahoma's Flaming Lips have bafflingly decided to regress to their days of experimental psychedlia for album #12. Don't expect any quirky indie anthems or singalong choruses. Do expect to be frustrated.

They're gods in the eyes of many music-loving mortals, but was it really necessary for The Flaming Lips to unleash a double album as their next studio release? Has the success of their last two records gone to the heads of Wayne Coyne et al, after years of putting in the hard slog? Can the Oklahoma band really expect to win over new fans with a 73 minute-long album? Most importantly of all, do these 18 tracks actually work cohesively?

It's doubtful that The Flaming Lips are bothered by any of these questions. 'Embryonic' is their 12th studio album, and Coyne has openly admitted that the band's previous quality control meter has not been strictly adhered to. The result is an album of sprawling, fuzzy jams, pointless wig-outs and half-baked ideas that disappointingly trail off into the ether.

That said, songs like the gurgling, whooping 'The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine' and the multi-part 'The Ego's Last Stand' provide fine background music, but 18 tracks of a similar nature begins to wear thin before long and there's little here to reel you back in for a repeat listen. Not even Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O can make a difference to 'I Can Be a Frog' (in fact, her supplementary effects are more annoying that 'cute'), while MGMT anonymously contribute to the messy 'Worm Mountain'.

The best songs are those with even a modicum of purpose or cohesion: the dream-like 'Sagittarius Silver Mountain' provides relief from the tangled riffs surrounding it, and 'Silver Trembling Hands' balances the unpredictable nature of the Flaming Lips with a glistening, hazy funk melody.

It's a pity, in a way, that Coyne and co. have decided to make an album that seems like a giant step backwards after their two stellar efforts in recent years. Are they geniuses or charlatans? Well, that's always the question with The Flaming Lips, isn't it?