•
Rating:
At thirty-five to forty years old, you can't feel a new wave of "Psychopsilocybin" inside you. This is understandable, even desirable. And if you really get that uncontrollable, furious, lustful, and drooling urge for stage diving and screaming like Mike Patton, you are still at a certain age.
Everything that you are is filtered by experiences, tours, new musical fields explored, crappy albums, cute albums, and IN THE WORST CASE MTV. Anyone at thirty-five to forty years old who starts making the same music they did at eighteen often needs money, or does it knowing they'll be ridiculed, OR both.
IN THE BEST CASE, you're called Picciotto, MacKaye, Denison, Yow.
Evidently, Incubus has never considered the risk of reverting to being kids again; their evolution (or involution) progressively flirting with the mainstream hasn't allowed for nostalgic diversions to old masterpieces, yet they maintained among the youngsters the fame of a "grunge band". Let's admit it: from the shifts of "Make Yourself" and "Morning View", through the wildly popular videos for Drive and "I Wish You Were Here", to a flamboyant pseudo-ruckus streak in "A Crow Left Of The Murder..." and "Light Grenades", Incubus has always been "pretty cool." It's a rather strange thing because many - myself included - have continued to listen to them, even without commitment, even feeling somewhat annoyed by them, even missing S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
Five years after "Light Grenades", "If Not Now, When?" arrives. If every Incubus album represents a small shift from the previous one, a new musical sphere explored, their latest effort explores a world devoid of ideas, full of covers, clichéd, with cloying lyrics and hot air. A backdrop of small, crappy singer-songwriters like James Blunt, Mika (listen to the title track to believe it), Paolo Nutini, and Chris Cornell's "Scream!". After the first listen, these seem to be the influences of "If Not Now, When?".
Subsequently, you can even tolerate a handful of tracks. "Defiance", voice and guitar, is quite catchy, as much as it might easily seem like an unreleased Chris Cornell track; "In The Company Of Wolves" is saved by its second, lysergic and edgy half, slightly reminiscent of Porcupine Tree in "The Sky Moves Sideways"; the ballad "Adolescents" sounds like a song from "Morning View" and is not even too bad except that it repeats FAR more than necessary.
Now...
If you don't know Incubus, before getting mired in this album, start with Fungus Amongus and S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
If you know Brandon Boyd and company, if you know the ups and downs of their career, before listening to this album, make a necessary preface in your mind: Incubus should be taken for what they are, namely a band that used to make great music. They would echo Faith No More and Primus without being derivative, the scratching was fabulously integrated, they were truly "badass"! Now they ooze honest mediocrity with tank-top songs and tear-jerker ballads, when things go well.
That way, you won't be too disappointed.
Tracklist and Lyrics
14 Dig (05:08)
We all have a weakness
But some of ours are easy to identify. Look me in the eye,
and ask for forgiveness.
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.
If I turn into another
dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.
We all have a sickness
that cleverly attaches and multiplies
No matter how we try.
We all have someone that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.
So when sickness turns my ego up
I know you'll act as a clever medicine.
If I turn into another,
dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.
Oh, each other when everything else is gone.
Oh! If I turn into another,
Dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me,
Sing this song!
remind me that we'll always have each other,
When everything else is gone
Oh! Each Other, When everything else is gone.
Oh, Each other...,When everything else is gone.
16 Wish You Were Here (03:42)
I dig my toes into the sand
The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket
I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless
And in this moment I am happy
Happy
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were, here
I lay my head onto the sand
The sky resembles a back-lit canopy with holes punched in it
I'm counting UFO's, I signal them with my lighter
And in this moment i am happy
Happy
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were, here
Wish you were here
The world's a rollercoaster
And I am not strapped in
Maybe I should hold with care
But my hands are busy in the air, saying
I wish you were here
I wish you were
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were, here
Wish you were here
17 Nice To Know You (06:19)
Better than watching Geller bending silver spoons
Better than witnessing newborn nebulas in bloom
She who sees from up high smiles and surely sings
Perspective pries your once weighty eyes and it gives you wings
I haven't felt the way I feel today
In so long it's hard for me to specify
I'm beginning to notice how much this feels
Like a waking limb, pins and needles
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you goodbye
Nice to know
To know you
Deeper than the deepest Cousteau would ever go
And higher than the heights of what we often think we know
Blessed she who clearly sees the wood for the trees
To obtain a bird's eye is to turn a blizzard to a breeze
I haven't felt the way I feel today
In so long it's hard for me to specify
I'm beginning to notice how much this feels
Like a waking limb, pins and needles
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you goodbye
Nice to know
To know you...
So could it be that it has been there all along?
I haven't felt the way I feel today
In so long it's hard for me to specify
I'm beginning to notice how much this feels
Like a waking limb, pins and needles
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you, goodbye
Nice to know you goodbye
Nice to know
To know you...
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By ilTrattoreRagno
In the long run, a machine ends up breaking down, no matter how much you’ve paid for it or how much you believed in it.
The album opens with the title track, a mixture of pop ugliness at remarkable levels with a seriously sickly sweet vocal melody.
