![]() ![]() But it's Boyd who really rises to the occasion, modest enough to yield the spotlight to his band mates on the tight, twisted instrumental showcase "Sick Sad Little World" but ticked off enough to make sure his message comes to the fore. The other is the rhythm section, which sounds something like a jazzy cross between Led Zeppelin and the Police. One is guitarist Mike Einziger, who is as comfortable with crowd-pleasing alt-rock cliches as with doling out wildly inventive winding riffs when they're least expected. Yet a few key elements help hold "Crow" together. The way Incubus veers from rousing, angry anthems like "Megalomaniac" to the sideways prog-pop of the title track can be jarring, and the flow of the disc admittedly suffers. The jams, solos and strange arrangements - not to mention singer Brandon Boyd's self-consciously poetic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics - are indulgent but rarely off-putting, sounding like the quintet was in a hurry to get every idea down on tape before they disappeared into the creative ether. Here Incubus reverts to its weirder, wilder roots without abandoning its newfound pop appeal. Incubus's latest, "A Crow Left of the Murder," shows success has gone to the band's head, but only in the best sense. By last summer Incubus was the star of the resuscitated Lollapalooza. But it was on the road that Incubus distinguished itself, carving out an audience that crossed genre lines as it bounded from the metal milieu of OzzFest to Moby's more eclectic Area:One outing. ![]() Once mere funk-metal pretenders, Incubus hit it big with 2001's "Morning View," a disc that balanced dynamic rock songs with hugely palatable ballads. It is the rare System of a Down, Tool or Incubus that will challenge the status quo. A quick scan of the radio reveals too many rock bands still looking to Nirvana as a template rather than an inspiration. For all the doors supposedly opened by the '90s alt-rock revolution, few mainstream-minded acts have taken advantage of any newly earned artistic freedoms.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |