Serving up one sonic experience after another.

Incubus - Light Grenades
Posted by Rachel Lux on 10-Apr-07 @ 05:31 PM

[3/5] Incubus have been a bit off the radar: Their most recent album was 2004's A Crow Left Of The Murder, and they haven't done any significant touring in over two years. Light Grenades is the band's official reemergence on the scene, and it serves up a nice balance of loud rockers-particularly the title track-and smooth, anthemic ballads like the gorgeous "Earth To Bella Part 2." Frontman Brandon Boyd's voice is as hypnotic as ever, delivering melodic choruses and near-screamed rants with equal amounts of conviction. Recorded both in California and Atlanta, Incubus trademarks-heavy imagery (first single "Anna-Molly"), echoing vocals ("Oil And Water") and racing guitar riffs ("Pendulous Threads")-abound on the album, along with some indie-tinged surprises like handclaps and bells. Also out of character for the band are the lyrics of "Love Hurts"-lines like "Love hurts, but sometimes it's a good hurt" seem too obvious for the usually descriptive rockers, but thankfully, the rest of the tracks are devoid of cheese. While a radio-ready track on par with "Drive" or "Nice To Know You" isn't automatically obvious, the collection of songs are interesting, tightly recorded and lack the trace of disorganization that perhaps can be heard on earlier releases. Overall, it's what you'd expect from Incubus-and that isn't a bad thing. (EPIC) Rachel Lux

ROCKS LIKE:
Incubus' Make Yourself
Hoobastank's Hoobastank
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium

IN-STORE SESSION WITH VOCALIST BRANDON BOYD

Your new album is a lot less political than 2004's A Crow Left Of The Murder. Was that intentional?
The word "political" scares me. The way that I write lyrics, I try to never plan them out at all. I like them to be observational and reactionary. It's not like I go into the process and say, "Oh, expect me to be a little more political now. I'm getting older and I think I need to take a turn." On the new record there's nothing outwardly political, but I would like to think that everything I ever write about has a sort of sociopolitical or observational bent to it.

You worked on these songs longer than you did on your other albums. Did that affect the overall sound?
I think so. Every single record we ever wrote, with the exception of this new one, was conceived and recorded and mixed within 16 weeks. [For] this album, we spent about a year writing and recording, and then we'd stop recording and write some more. We ended up writing over 20 songs and we were able to pick the best ones out of the batch and really get to know them more than we ever had before. I'm more convinced that this record is the best piece of work we've done. And that's just my opinion, I'm sure there will be a lot of kids that are like, "I like the old shit better." [Laughs.]

What's the story behind the two different versions of "Earth To Bella"?
I didn't know what it was going to be when I was writing it. I thought that it was maybe going to be an interlude, and I knew that just melodically, it was kind of cool. But everyone in the band really liked it, and we recorded it and we sort of turned it into this sonic wonderland and Brendan [O'Brien], our producer, really liked it and he was like, "What if we did a part two of this song, where it somehow changes and the story kind of rounded itself out?" It seemed like a great way to end the album. The first part is talking about undoing yourself and seeing a second sun ascend and everything moves up and explodes outward. And the second part is about letting go and letting all of your fears descend and fall away, and then the song kind of sinks away like a feather floating down out of a window or something. I'm kind of a tripper, if you didn't know already. [Laughs.]

So is your band mascot Chuck going to make an appearance on this album's artwork?
Oh, I hope so! He might creep in somewhere-maybe [as a] holograph or something. -Rachel Lux




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