I still remember the day I was first introduced to Incubus. It was early 1998 and my friend John had their album S.C.I.E.N.C.E. in his car. "Listen to this dude, this band is sick." He put on A Simple Shade of Green and honestly, I loved that song from the first listen. It was so full of power and energy, and it was quite a bit different from anything else out at that moment in time. That could be said for almost all of that record.

With 1999's Make Yourself, Incubus hit the big time. Thanks to Pardon Me, the album blew up. And when Drive was released, you could just forget about it. Drive didn't begin to disappear from radio playlists until just before the fall. Perfect timing, since that's when the band's newest record, titled Morning View, was due out.

Incubus is much more of a mainstream rock band now than they were just four years ago. Their sound has mellowed, and lead singer Brandon Boyd has become a sexual icon of sorts for women who want some depth in their men. In many ways, he is what Eddie Vedder could have been if he had accepted it. They seem to have a new age perspective to their writing that at times can be really interesting. And, at others, it can be the most annoying, boring, and irritating perspective one could ever come up with.

Wish You Were Here was the first single and with each listen, it's grown on me a little each time. Lyrically, the title says it all, it's a song about a perfect scene only missing that perfect person who is no longer in your life. The band followed that up with second single Nice to Know You, which sounds forced and rushed. I mean, it starts off as an incredible song, but the chorus is terrible ("Nice to know you, Goodbye!"). There's no hook in there at all, and any anger that would redeem the song isn't present.

My favorite song lyrically is 11:00 AM, although musically, I find it boring. If there's one thing I've noticed about guitar player Michael Einziger, it's that he plays much of the album in one tuning on electric guitar. This is the same problem that can plague Creed's Mark Tremonti. He's getting a lot of the same sounding notes as he did on Wish You Were Here on this song, and more than anything, you just feel like you've "been there, done that."

Blood on the Ground tries to recapture that old harder Incubus sound, but it doesn't work because Brandon Boyd cannot sing in a loud passionate voice to save his life here. He sounds absolutely terrible. As his voice raises, you just want to shoot him and put him out of his misery. Just scream it Brandon, you know, like you used to. Even if it sucks, it will be real.

Meanwhile, Warning is a power ballad type number that has some nice guitar work from Einziger and for once, some nice vocals from Boyd, but not much else. But just when you think that song is nothing great, you hear Echo, and you just wonder to yourself "this band has played Ozzfest?" Tis true, back when they knew how to play a song with some power and some conviction.

The band does try to redeem themselves with some harder rockers towards the end of this record, but one of them, Have You Ever, sounds like a new age inspired Less Than Jake song, and the other one, Under My Umbrella, has the most ridiculously overplayed formula in rock today: soft verse, heavy chorus. Excuse me, but f*cking YAWN!!!

I can appreciate it when a band tries to diversify, when a band tries something new, when a band experiments. That is what Incubus has done here, just as they did on Make Yourself. But more than anything, the songs come off as pretentious, the guitar playing is not up to par in most cases, and it's just a boring album. I want to know when the rhythm section and their turntablist became relegated to backup duty. They were what made Incubus a bit unique a while ago. Now, they stand in the background while Boyd poses for the ladies and while fans who don't know any better hail Einziger as some sort of guitar God. To that, I just say "please."

The breakdown:

Songs you've heard on MTV/radio: Wish You Were Here, Nice to Know You

Songs you will hear on MTV/radio in the future: Blood on the Ground, Warning

Keepers: Wish You Were Here, Circles

Throw it Away: 11 AM, Echo, Warning







Recommended: No