Brandon

I even forgot to identify myself :-P

Don't you like ellipses? Too bad… I do.
I know I’ve actually written very little about the concert, but what can you do: some concerts I watch, others I live... and it’s really hard to talk about those. If you don’t think so, well... too bad.

sorry for the length of my comments... pardon me... ^_^

This album completely dissociates itself from everything that has been, for two fundamental reasons (or maybe three): 1) The new bassist, mediocre compared to the virtuosic Dirk Lance; 2) The producer Brendan O'Brien who surely contributed to the sounds; 3) FUNDAMENTAL!!! Mike Einziger has changed guitars... HE HAS THE FENDER!!! ORRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOORE!!! The Paul Reed Smith, besides being highly superior in sound, is much more suited for a powerful, compact distortion, typical of Incubus... but the Fender... bleah... I shudder to think about the live performance on MTV, where some gems like Nowhere Fast and Warning were raped by a ugly, dirty guitar sound, and I don’t know what else to say to explain myself... it was awful, in short... and I dread to think about the next live show I’ll see where, if Einziger dares to deflower a song like Pardon Me, I believe there will be a popular uprising and the venue will be razed to the ground... All this... I don’t know why... I just felt like writing it down, and anyway, it’s a good CD, not a masterpiece, but not to be thrown away either... it holds its own...

So... I’ve been following Incubus for several years, and for a long time they were my absolutely mega favorite band (before I discovered Tool, NIN, A Perfect Circle... :-)... This album is certainly not up to their abilities, but indeed it had been in the air for a while... let me explain...
The Incubus from Fungus Amongus and Enjoy Incubus were pure Funky, they were power, they were vitality, they were joy in making music, they were innovation, they were good... with Science, in my humble opinion, they reached the peak of their potential: on that cd they shift from funky to nu metal to rap to things I don’t even know, all the way to jazz (JAZZ??) with Summer Romance... those were different times, they were younger, they had a DJ who was truly a beast and they enjoyed deconstructing music and putting it back together however the hell they wanted...
Then comes Make Yourself and the problems begin... A splendid album, but one that starts to consecrate them to the public (see Drive) and this is felt with Morning View, which, despite some “commercial” elements (but can they really be called that for Incubus?) like Are You In? or Mexico, was still an Incubus cd with some unforgettable gems... (for those who know them, just remember Nice to Know You, Circles, or the stunning Just a Phase that stuns with its brilliance...)
to be continued...