It’s odd - I can completely understand why you and other folx defend these albums (I don’t despise them by any means) but they still leave me lukewarm/cold/uninterested for various reasons:
Yoshimi: I loved it at the time, but it’s not proved itself a keeper longevity-wise (nothing to do with Wayne’s dickiness either, I should add). It’s more that there aren’t really that many songs there when I compare it to their early-mid 90s output - Fight Test is great, but knowing it’s a straight Cat Stevens ripoff isn’t exactly charming; Yoshimi itself is fun but ultimately slight, and only Hypnotist??? jumps out at me from the otherwise mid-tempo introspective moroseness. OK, there’s DYR???, but after too many many indie weddings I’ve been to (played as part of the ceremony twice, always at the reception) other general celebrations and some horribly painful loss and grief endured these last two years, I’d really rather never hear the fucking thing again. Yes Wayne, I do realise, but you’re not fucking helping, so please shut up.
Mystics: Even at the time, this felt like Yoshimi Part II but with all the fun, playfulness and subtlety (relatively speaking) sucked out of it. If the consensus sez the only truly great songs here are WAND and Pompeii, than I’m happy to side with the consensus (and it ain’t exactly thrilling that the best song on the album is an instrumental Pink Floyd did better three decades earlier…)
Edit - seeing them live in 2006 only made my irritation at this album (and the Lips in general) worse because it was essentially the same fucking gig as I’d seen four years earlier, just with a smattering of new songs thrown in here and there. It was a good show when it was a show, but Wayne was at at his “interminably dull and rambling monologues to the crowd” worst, so much so that the biggest Lips/Wayne fanboy in my life was actively trying not to shout out “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND PLAY SOME FUCKING MUSIC!”
Embryonic - I really should like this album (given it’s when they got properly weird again) yet for some reason I find it irredeemably dull throughout its interminable 70 minute runtime. Where are the songs? The 90s Lips hung bonkers music on hooks big enough to catch sharks; this album is the ultimate example of aimless noodling for the sake of noodling. It might be one of the worst things they ever did.
The Terror - I’ve not listened to this in years, but I genuinely enjoyed it when it came out and I reckon I’d enjoy a re-listen (I will do so tomorrow when I get home tomorrow). It felt like a reset button on their career, and whilst it was sparse and spare and quite harrowing at times, I got what they were trying to do.
Oczy Mlody - Nothing good to say about this whatsoever, sorry.