(Epic)
On past albums, Incubus has perfected the art of teasing the audience with a building climax, only to snatch it away, engaging in an expectant limbo before finally rewarding with hard-hitting musical gratification. is the latest attempt by Brandon and the boys to employ this characteristic style to produce music that originally meshes various musical genres.
They tried.
Although the band has seamlessly incorporated replacement bassist Ben Kenney (formerly of The Roots) for Dirk Lance, this album fails to draw in the listener with the experimental spirit that made a success. While their last album, , was in part an appeal to the top 40 fan base acquired after the success of the Billboard-friendly \Drive,"" this album seeks to re-legitimize the band to its original head-banging fans of the era. Instead of proving their worth, Incubus falls into a mediocre rut of vague attempts at a new sound.
builds on Incubus' tradition of social and political songs, but the weight of these songs is diminished by the lack of clear lyrical and instrumental direction. ""Zee Deveel,"" a comment on materialism and status symbols, is promising with Boyd's vocal performance and ear-pleasing highs and lows, but is muddled by misguided guitar contributions. Misplaced guitars appear too many times, preventing the album from succeeding. It seems as though the band has the motivation to be experimental, but cannot successfully focus its energies.
Lead singer Brandon Boyd's lyrics have been consistently inspired, revealing the poet behind his pretty-boy frontman image. However Boyd's attempts at lyrical poetry have fallen flat on this album and are more clich??d than expressive. With the mild exception of anti-love song ""Beware, Criminal,"" the freshness and fluidity normally found in his songs are completely absent. It is difficult to find even one standout track on this disappointing album.
Even a band with as diverse a fan base as Incubus commands will have trouble finding a devoted audience for It is too hard for the crowd, too poor for the fans and too slow for the lovers. Incubus needs to take a time out, and re-evaluate their game plan.
(Narada)
Integrating the talents of eight brothers and sisters from Lakefield, Ontario, Leahy's second album,, resonates with the vitality of their debut, as well as a sense of artistic growth forged through experience. Having toured with Shania Twain after the release of their first album and performing in a PBS special, this band is no stranger to diversity and it is reflected in their music.
Leahy's music features a duality of sound, at once energetic and reflective. The album commences with ""Chasing Rain,"" an Irish reel infused with Spanish influences. As the track begins, the fast-paced fiddle takes center stage, creating the innovative, vivacious sound for which the band is known. Soon, quiet footsteps create a compelling beat, as Spanish flamenco dancers can be heard accompanying the fiddler. The combination of these sounds creates a situation in which the listener can visualize the contrast between the understated eloquence of the fiddler and the furious blur of flamenco dancing shoes. This ability to recreate the energy of a live performance on an album is a rare talent. ""On wedding Day Jig,"" Leahy creates a musical duel between their piano and their fiddle, paced with quiet musical interludes to keep the song from sounding too hectic. But the album's standout track is ""I Want You To Know."" By integrating thought-provoking lyrics with the subtlety of an Irish jig, ""I Want You To Know,"" is a testament to the quality music Leahy is capable of when they stay true to their roots.
Unfortunatly, Leahy doesn't always stay true to their roots. They devote the middle of In All Things to low-quality vocal tracks. Poor lyrics such as ""on and on coyote runs against the hum and roar/ no sight, no sound, no sacred ground,"" leave the listener wondering if the band was overly influenced by the poetic lyrics of Shania Twain's contemporary country masterpiece, ""Man! I Feel Like a Woman!"" But emulating Ms. Twain, however, is no excuse for the weaknesses found in the middle tracks of the disc. Leahy's insistence on abandoning their uniquely Irish sound in order to explore cheesy pop melodies is shameful, as it makes these tracks appear as filler material for an unfinished album.
But by the end of the CD, it is clear the good songs outnumber the bad. Although some tracks disappoint, the exuberance found on Leahy's provides for an music experience that should not be ignored.
(V2)
In typical Moby fashion, the liner notes of the new Voodoo Child (a pseudonym Moby saves for his less commercial material) album present a brief essay by the bald one himself. Using uncharacteristically little liner note space, Moby provides a concise, clear definition of what he considers the album to be: neither an experimental record, nor an avant-garde record, but a straight-forward, underground, electronic dance record. Unfortunately, Moby falls far short of those goals, creating a record that sounds pretty dated compared to most modern electronic music.
If all dance music is closely tied to its time period to some extent, 's time period came about 10 years ago. Since then, the best mainstream electronic music has successfully absorbed all sorts of disparate genres. The most prevalent in today's best dance music is the anything-goes attitude prominently featured on Basement Jaxx's kaleidoscopic album . Modern Dance has embraced more complex arrangements and the use of varied time signatures. In this light, 's simplistic, though highly melodic, synthesizer lines and repetitive 4/4 house-derived beats can get a bit dull.
Even though doesn't innovate, it still is a capable, if generic, club record. A high level of energy is maintained throughout the record and, save for an unnecessarily long breakdown in ""Strings,"" it doesn't let up. ""Gotta Be Loose In Your Mind"" utilizes a vocal sample that sounds like it was recovered from some long-lost Play B-side and the bubbly, effervescent synthesizers found in ""Electronics"" bring some Kraftwerk material to mind. The most danceable songs on the album, namely ""Take It Home"" and ""Last,"" put emphasis on Moby's propulsive bass lines and have arrangements that don't suffocate either songs' hook.
But far from a landslide success, there are plenty of missteps on . ""Uhh Yeah"" starts out promisingly with a skittish bass line and panned clicks and pops that draw the listener in, but once the cheesy piano chords kick in the song loses its luster. ""Light Is In Your Eyes"" is filled with saccharine melodies and the closer, ""Synthesisers,"" should have been shortened to at least a quarter of it's nine minute length.
Light years away from the meticulously arranged electronica of and (to a lesser extent) , falls short of the quality that usually comes with a Moby release. Unlike his other work, this is not an album that will become more rewarding or reveal new subtleties with subsequent listens. But if you are longing for the sound of early '90s techno, this album might be for you.
