A synth? Some kind of treated sample? Ultra-filtered guitar? Of course, the chorus blasts in with the familiar, ear-filling crunch of guitar as Brandon Boyd’s hook wanders a tightrope between odd and pop. “Glass,” one of its many would-be singles that wasn’t, is a perfect example: just try and identify any of the sounds in the verse that aren’t bass or drums. was such a kaleidoscopic palette of thrilling sounds to have whirled into one blender that it really tempts one to wonder how large a role DJ Lyfe - who never appeared on another record by the band (and apparently threatened his longtime replacement Chris Kilmore one more than one occasion) - played in the group. How often does that balance crystallize into a thundering rock song? And yet for all this labor and flexing, it’s completely at peace with itself - note those placid verses and whirring turntable effects. And on the huge hit “Wish You Were Here” he brokers a successful truce between easy and difficult, riding the crashing wave of the simplest chorus he’ll ever write (“I wish you were here / I wish you were here”) and pulling the notes like they’re taffy, contorting them into something impossible for any mere mortal to karaoke justifiably.
“Wish You Were Here” (from Morning View, 2001)īeing an Incubus fan is a near-constant battle between trying to decide if you want them easy or difficult, as you ultimately applaud them for doing things most bands don’t - including perhaps unflattering vocal choices. Brandon Boyd attacks an otherwise conventional rock song like Ani DiFranco jazzing around her own unfathomable strum patterns. With its easy riff imbued with double-time intensity, warmly harmonized chorus sung with all the earnest anxiety that the goofy title pun on “anomaly” deserves, it’s weird to think this wasn’t a bigger hit.Ĩ. Thanks to its unforgettable hook, “Anna-Molly” might be the quintessential Incubus single. Its centerpiece “Sick Sad Little World” was a six-minute minor prog epic that compressed their artsy bass moves and time-signature somersaults into something any ’80s kid could process: A Police song! Brandon Boyd’s against-the-beat yelping and the unmistakably “Message in a Bottle”-derived riff here gave Incubus’ nü-metal a welcome jolt of Sting.ġ0. “Sick Sad Little World” (from A Crow Left of the Murder…, 2004)įans disappointed by “Megalomaniac,” the least nuanced Bush diatribe to hit hard-rock radio in 2004 (“You’re no Jesus/ Yeah, you’re no f-ing Elvis”) were probably starting to realize these oddballs were turning into regular-balls, but there’s no way a weirdo title like A Crow Left of the Murder… wasn’t gonna have an off-kilter jam or three.
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