Twenty years after Incubus\u2019 breakthrough album Glass<\/i> and six years after their last release If Not Now, When?<\/i>, the oft-derided hard rockers have returned with their eighth studio album and an evident desire to return to the sound of the old.<\/p>\n
This will likely be a welcome change to many fans, as the band\u2019s albums had been steadily growing more mannered and mature since A Crow Left Of The Murder<\/i>. This isn\u2019t a handicap with journeyman rock bands like this, and indeed Incubus had shown signs of emotional growth and adult rock leanings as early as \u201cDrive.\u201d But their last three albums have only been fitfully entertaining and, at worst, rather generic post-alternative.<\/p>\n
So in an attempt to go back to basics, the SoCal band hired EDM star Skrillex to produce this disc and wrote a tight set of songs \u2013 11 tracks, 40 minutes \u2013 that consciously recalls their late \u201890s work. There are some short, energetic hard rockers, a couple of slower pop-rock tunes, an instrumental and a brief dash of weirdness (remember Chuck?). It\u2019s everything an Incubus album should be, for better or worse, meaning if you never liked them this won\u2019t change your mind. But if you were a fan, you will be quite satisfied.<\/p>\n
Most notably, it seems the guys are having a little fun again. \u201cNo Fun,\u201d \u201cGlitterbomb,\u201d and \u201cNimble Bastard\u201d are a brace of power singles, not unlike how Pearl Jam opened Binaural <\/i>after the low-key Yield<\/i>, and if they\u2019re not already on the radio it wouldn\u2019t surprise me to hear at least one of them coming soon. And while songs like \u201cUndefeated\u201d and \u201cState Of The Art\u201d are similar to the slower, more thoughtful Incubus of the last 14 years, their expansion and modern production elements push them into slightly more indie territory. But because they\u2019re still capable arena rockers, the song is sort of a cross between a gutsier Coldplay and Switchfoot (especially Boyd\u2019s sustained vocal note on the bridge toward the end of the song and his reaching-for-the-rafters lyrical soar \u201cI\u2019m not broken \/ I\u2019m not dead yet \/ Whoa-oh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLoneliest\u201d is an interesting track that takes the band\u2019s sound in a new, more electronic direction, and it\u2019s a natural fit with Boyd\u2019s voice; it\u2019s not far-fetched to listen to, say, Tame Impala and then segue into the chilly, languid hip-hop\/EDM beat of this song. If \u201cNo Fun\u201d is their past, then \u201cLoneliest\u201d is their future. \u201cFamiliar Faces\u201d updates the band\u2019s Make Yourself <\/i>album for 2017 to excellent results, condensing everything this band has to say in a tight three-minute package. <\/p>\n
Back to the concept of having fun again: the goofy minute-long \u201cWhen I Became A Man\u201d offers a laugh midway through the disc, a concept unthinkable on ponderous albums like Light Grenades<\/i>. Meanwhile, the chunky rhythms, Sabbath-tuned guitars, and hippie lyrics of \u201cLove In A Time Of Surveillance\u201d are stoner rock of the best kind, not least because of the hyper-kinetic drum solo that starts the song for absolutely no reason. <\/p>\n
And while some bands make entire careers out of slow electronic burbles like \u201cMake No Sound In The Digital Forest,\u201d Incubus is content to leave it as a dull instrumental toward the end of the disc and let it serve as a lead-in to the hard classicist rock of \u201cThrow Out The Map,\u201d which unfortunately squanders its fantastic introduction for a rather generic Incubus verse\/chorus. This <\/i>is the one that should have been instrumental, and maybe the guys will stretch it out in concert. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
Point is, 8 <\/i>shows this longstanding group having a good time and reclaiming their name, and it will be a treat for fans and, perhaps, a way in for newcomers. And if very little here is truly spectacular or groundbreaking, the majority is well-crafted modern journeyman rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6079],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44909","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-incubus","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44909"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44909"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}