Skip to main content

Morning View – Incubus

 


Released: 2001

Label: Immortal / Epic

When I bought: 2001

The turn of the century was a pretty uninspiring time for the UK indie and alternative rock scene. 

The Britpop party was over, and other than Radiohead it didn't feel a lot was going on. 

That vacuum was filled with landfill US heavy rock bands - which I really hated. 

Korn, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Puddle of Mudd, System of a Down, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson - what an absolute torrent of tuneless, self-important, unimaginative crap.

Unfortunately, this what a lot of people at my school listened to. I ploughed a bit of a lonely furrow, still clinging to the hope that Oasis would take over the world again, or the Stone Roses would somehow reunite and baggy would be our salvation.

I tried my best with that US nu-metal, funk metal, rusty metal nonsense, and the only band I got close to liking was Incubus.

They had more melody than the others, less screaming and feeling sorry for themselves because their mum had told them to tidy their room or whatever it was those other bands were shouting about.

Morning View is Incubus's fourth album, and came after the success of the acoustic-led 'Drive' single from their previous record.

They were always a bit heavier than that tune indicated, so on this album they tried to marry up the radio-friendliness of 'Drive' with the hard-riffs from their second album S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

At first you feel like they've pulled it off. Album opener 'Nice To Know You' is sublime, and has a hell of a shift from the verse into the bridge (or pre-chorus if you want to be a dick about it) before the chorus propers in and it's mega.

'Circles' continues in that vein, and then comes the big single from the album, 'Wish You Were Here', which sees the band go for a full-on hands-in-the-air singalong.

But then... it starts to lose it's way. 'Just A Phase' brings the vibe down down after the intensity of the first three songs, but the first couple of minutes is just Brandon Boyd warbling.

'Blood On The Ground' retreads the same territory as 'Circles' and it all feels repetitive. The wall-of-noise distortion pedals are routinely deployed and everything merges into one sound, one tempo, one tune.

There are some more bright spots though. 'Are You In?' is a delightfully light and frothy piece of funk rock that shows the band trying something different, and 'Aqueous Transmission' is a lovely tune that floats the album to its conclusion.

Lyrically, Boyd is constantly trying to sound deep by using as many metaphors as possible, so you're left with the notion of someone describing feelings as opposed to conveying them.

Even so, there's some good tunes here, and of the bands people used to play at house parties when I was in the sixth form, they remain the best of the bunch.

5/10



Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pointless Nostalgic – Jamie Cullum

Year Released: 2002 Label: Candid Year Bought: Can't Remember Jamie Cullum burst into the nation's consciousness with a performance on Parkinson in April 2003, a showing that was soon followed by the huge-selling album 'Twentysomething'. It was 2002's 'Pointless Nostalgic' that put Cullum on Parky's radar, and shows the jazz singer and pianist beginning to hone the act that would make him such a breakthrough. There's a host of standards here – 'In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning'. 'It Ain't Necessarily So', 'I Can't Get Started' – alongside a couple of originals and a cover of Radiohead's 'High And Dry'. I remember that song being a big deal at the time for some reason. I think it was seen as rare merging of jazz and alt-rock. Cullum's version is not bad, and actually keeps it quite light and subdued without slipping into a dirge. Cullum was just 23 when this was recorded, and perhaps it's his yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ringleader Of The Tormentors – Morrissey

Year Released: 2006 Label: Sanctuary Year Bought: 2006 Released in 2006, 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' in many ways represents the apex of the Morrissey resurgence that began two years earlier with 'You Are The Quarry'.  Whereas that album peaked at number 2 in the album chart (although it did spawn 4 top ten singles), its successor gave Morrissey his first number 1 album since 1994's 'Vauxhall and I'. 'Ringleaders...' raised some eyebrows at the time as Morrissey sang explicitly about something he had previously made a virtue of not discussing. His sex life. "There are exploding kegs between my legs," he sings on 'Dear God Please Help Me' – a tune that swells and grows to a climax with strings written by Ennio Morricone. "Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between," he later adds.  Perhaps this new found desire of the flesh was due to this album being recorded in Italy, and references to the country season the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Best Of - James

Released: 1998 Label: Fontana When I bought: Can't remember James are one of the great under-appreciated UK bands. Sure, 'Sit Down' will pay their pension, but there's so many great tunes that have been swallowed up and forgotten. When people talk about the great UK bands of the 80s and 90s, they never get a nod. Early in the band's career saw an involvement with Factory Records, but they rarely get a mention when that label is talked about. I remember very clearly when this singles collection was released. It was one of the records that made up the soundtrack to my summer of 1998. I was 13 years old, and into two things: football and music.  At that age I used to spend most of my non-school time in a park at the end of the road I lived in in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, playing football with a bunch of lads about 3 or 4 years older who lived in the neighbourhood. They always had cool CDs, and one of them was this. Seemingly endless games of headers and vo...
Post a Comment
Read more