A couple of years after the weird but diverse EP Trust Fall – which mysteriously was called ‘Side A’ – long-time reliable rockers Incubus are morphing into new shapes on their eighth full-length album, simply called 8 .
One of the major reasons Incubus attracted headlines for this one, though, is because of their choice of co-producer. Turns out Sunny Moore aka dubstep superstar Skrillex is still very much into rock (or at least he feels like getting back into it), so he was the one who mixed the album.
The result? Well, definitely a lot of fans who would have grouses against the way the beats kind of hog the spotlight on the album, but perhaps Moore’s role as co-producer (with Dave Sardy) is Incubus’ way of searching for more ways to experiment.
8 seems to start with a statement of just how true-to- roots Incubus have always been – no matter how many fans have expressed distaste for so many past albums – with ‘No Fun’, showing that frontman Brandon Boyd still knows how to sing about love gone wrong.
Their lead single ‘Nimble Bastard’ begins showing off their groovy side, but the mix just ruins it. Even ‘State of the Art’ and ‘Glitterbomb’ become a little too flittering, the starry guitars giving way to some plain-old bitter-sweetness that’s trying to be a radio hit, flat guitar lines and everything.
Thankfully, on ‘Glitterbomb’, guitarist Mike Einziger takes over with a monster guitar groove, even if for just half a minute.
Their next best arrives ‘Loneliest’, a hint of their previous album If Not Now, When? It’s one of those perfect late-night musings that Incubus still know how to nail. Einziger’s guitar trickery permeates throughout ‘Familiar Faces’, but it’s somewhat staid. There’s something intentionally dated about ‘Love in a Time of Surveillance’, starting from a sample of a dial-up connection to a funkier rock riff, but it degenerates into something a little too trudging, even though Chris Kilmore’s electronics come in at the most interesting junctures.
Kilmore probably becomes the best thing on this album when you hear ‘Make No Sound in the Digital Forest’, a chilly, cosmic jam akin to one of their earliest fan favourites ‘Aqueous Transmission’.
8 comes across more like a greatest hits album, where Incubus are trying to channel the best parts of all their previous albums – but as was the case with those albums, some worked and some did not.
