Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	81/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	A−
The Daily Telegraph
Entertainment Weekly	B
The Guardian
MSN Music	A−
NME	10/10
Pitchfork Media	9.0/10
Rolling Stone
Spin	7/10

Embryonic is the twelfth studio album by experimental rock band The Flaming Lips released on October 13, 2009 on Warner Bros. It is the first double album to be released by the band, announced during an interview with the band's frontman Wayne Coyne,

Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we should do a double album... Just this idea that you can weave a couple of themes into there and you can sprawl a little bit.

Several other artists made contributions to various tracks on the album. German mathematician Dr. Thorsten Wörmann contributed to the track "Gemini Syringes", psychedelic rock band MGMT contributed to the song "Worm Mountain", and Karen O (lead singer of the alternative rock trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs) contributed to the songs "I Can Be a Frog" and "Watching the Planets".Karen O's contributions were recorded by Wayne Coyne over the phone.

On August 13, 2009, the song "See the Leaves" was reviewed and streamed on Pitchfork.com On September 3, 2009, the album was previewed in its entirety on The Fly website, using Wayne Coyne's own track-by-track guide.

On September 17, 2009, the band appeared on The Colbert Report and announced that the album would stream in its entirety on Colbertnation.com until September 21, 2009.

Embryonic was streamed in full on the UK music site clashmusic.com on October 5, just over a week ahead of its release.

Embryonic was selected as fourth best album of 2009 by Pitchfork Media

Embryonic received general acclaim from critics upon release, garnering an 81/100 critic score on Metacritic. The New Musical Express noted that "ten years after their last masterpiece, The Flaming Lips have finally produced another one," while Paste Magazine described the record as "a wonderfully weird parade of sonic delights: an arresting consummation of the Lips' two-and-a-half decade career." Other critics praised the album but were also quick to note its dramatically different sound in comparison to previous releases. Mojo Magazine remarked that "(Embryonic's) themes may be familiar, but its fine, dazzlingly outlandish music is fresh and utterly fearless," while The Record Review noted that with the album, The Flaming Lips show that they are "one of the few acts left that stills dares to be original, inspired and off-center in such a mainstream musical climate." The album has sold 103,000 copies so far in the United States.

...
Wikipedia