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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



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