“It’s only a trust fall” is the first (and best) refrain you’ll have stuck in your head all day, or even all month when you tune into American alt rock band Incubus’ new four-track release, Trust Fall . Called Side A, which means there’s a Side B expected later this year, Incubus seem to be looking for a new way to entertain either themselves or their fans with a two-parter like this.
But it is still classic Incubus when you hear vocalist Brandon Boyd’s wonderfully distinctive croon set to a rager of a riff by Mike Einziger. It is unconventional that the title track, and second single, clocks in at about six minutes and has several twists and turns, from the high and mighty chorus to a soft ending, Boyd instructing us to “Salute the abyss/Smile and surrender/Into a glimpse/The rapturous nothing.” They then jump into a slow stomper, thick riff-filled ‘Make Out Party’, which is just as sensual as it sounds. Boyd goes into some not-so-PG-13 details about making love, his falsetto voice making a mark that’ll probably make anyone melt. He’s about as suggestive as a slow R&B jam’s vocalist, but the band adds a trippy edge – especially keyboardist/turntablist Chris Kilmore’s synth solo – to keep the song from tipping over into a mess of teenaged hormones.
The synth returns as a starting point for ‘Absolution Calling’, the band’s first single off the EP, which is a follow up to 2011’s light-headed ‘If Not Now, When?’ If you heard it first, you’d be struck by their bizarre dance-off style music video, but ‘Absolution Calling’ is the radio-friendly uplifting Incubus that everyone has loved, from their days of ‘Nice To Know You’ to ‘Drive’. They unfortunately get a bit yawn-worthy when they wrap up with ‘Dance Like You’re Dumb’. Einziger has got those fuzzy guitar riffs, but unlike ‘Trust Fall’, there isn’t a good enough melody attached to the chorus to make it stick.
Barring that, three out of four isn’t bad – and for a band like Incubus who are probably not content with just their existing fanbase over the last two decades or so, and want to reach out for more. Like a few of their recent releases, there are bound to be hits and misses, but let’s see what they pull out of Side B.
(Trust Fall (Side A) is available on Island Records in MP3 format for Rs. 60)
