No one ever really talks about it, but it was a HUGE album when it came out. To this day I would put Worm Mountain in my top 20 favorite songs of all time. Watching the Planets and See the Leaves are incredible as well.

In terms of indie music, the album was wildly influential. A lot of things after it released sound like it and very few things did before. It blended rock and modern electronic music in a way that hadn’t really been done before. MGMT was huge back then, and they actually produced Worm Mountain, but even MGMT didn’t hit that spot. They were more jaunty where Embryonic was a punch in the face.

Pitchfork gave Embronic a 9/10 when it released in October and ranked it as the 4th best album of the year two months later. Behind only Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca, and The xx’s self titled debut. Ahead of classics such as Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, Phoenix’ Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Real Estate’ self titled debut, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ It’s Blitz.

Almost all of those albums have been referenced and praised to no end in the last decade. Despite this, you could make the argument that Embryonic was more influential. I would also argue that no one has done that hard hitting electronic rock sound better.

Post script: I haven’t done an exhaustive study on the topic, but I feel like if there was a top 10 album based on if an album’s song titles were used as writing prompts, Embryonic would be in that top 10. Silver Trembling Hands, The Ego’s Last Stand, The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine.. just golden stuff.

Post post script: repeat everything I just wrote except top 10 albums to make animated videos for based on the song titles.