The Flaming Lips Announce First New Album in Seven Years, The Teardrop Throbs

The Flaming Lips will release The Teardrop Throbs, their first new album in seven years and 17th overall, on January 22. The record is the Oklahoma psych-rock band's debut for Third Man Records and its first LP in 37 years not released through longtime label Warner. It is also the first in 35 years without multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, who is no longer in the band — reasons for his departure vary depending on the party, the announcement notes.

The album arrives two months after the 20th anniversary edition of At War With the Mystics. It is led by the single "God Will Control the Werewolves" and closes a two-year writing process that frontman Wayne Coyne documented in a 2,000-plus-word track-by-track statement.

What does the new record sound like?

Coyne says the opening track "Throb" grew from a note-for-note re-creation of the "Pretty Fly" song in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, performed by new slide guitarist A.J. (Adam Judd) Slaughter. The album also contains "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell Part Two," a sequel to the song on 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

"I've always liked it when songs from previous records get a new rendering," Coyne said. "It's not the same song but it is dealing with Ego death.. what is status and power and the struggle to turn it into something useful."

He described the sequel as "an attempt to capture the idea of Syd Barrett fronting Pink Floyd" — with Barrett singing not about money but about "a queen killing the king and stealing his crown to melt it down and make sword out of it."

The 13-track album was produced by the band alongside Taylor Johnson, Dave Fridmann and Scott Booker, with additional production by Jon and Mike Fridmann.

Where did the songs come from?

Coyne's statement traces several songs to a single scene: sitting in a Trader Joe's parking lot while his three-year-old son Rex slept in the backseat. He misread a strip-mall sign as "Children's Death Foundation" — it actually said "Children's Health Foundation" — and the mistaken image of his mother consoling grieving families stuck.

"Even though I was wrong the damage or the epiphany had already been done," Coyne wrote.

Other origin stories in the statement:

• "God Will Control the Werewolves" began as a hide-and-seek game with his sons Bloom and Rex under a full moon, after a moon-drained ocean cove walk a month earlier.
• "Titan" (working title "Matrix") was built on bassist Tommy's home Pro Tools rig; a text from Perry Farrell containing a frog poem shaped its high-energy vocal, sung by Matt.
• "Every Teardrop Cried" started as one line about the death of a child, roughly a year after Nell died.
• "Hooray" originally told of a blonde secret agent stealing the president's brain; Coyne's wife Katy made him change the premise so no one would link it to Trump.
• "You've Got Brain Damage" was the first song that signaled a new album was underway, built from a drone on Slaughter's Bandcamp release.

"I don't really believe any song has a fixed meaning.. and I don't WANT my songs to have a fixed meaning," Coyne wrote, signing off "Wayne 2026."

When can fans hear it live?

The band will preview the album at intimate two-night stands:

• January 22–23: Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville
• January 26–27: Irving Plaza, New York
• February 23–24: The Bellwether, Los Angeles
• February 27–28: Metro, Chicago
• April 2–3: O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London

Ten shows across five cities will mark the band's first live airings of the Drozd-less lineup on new material. The January 22 Nashville date coincides exactly with the album's release day.