Incubus

‘Light Grenades’

50 Decibels

Sounds like: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Probably the best thing you can say about Incubus is that lead singer Brandon Boyd has a decent voice. After that, it’s mostly downhill.

Unfortunately, even Boyd’s pipes aren’t without flaws. There is a workmanlike quality to his voice that always makes his singing seem forced. Boyd is able to hit most of the notes, but never comes close to the audience’s heartstrings. He has no real edge.

Not only that, but Boyd leads a band that is missing a real identity. After a few years playing funky neo-metal, Incubus has settled into a bland form of vaguely Californian alt rock, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers with a strung-out Anthony Kiedis and none of the guitar pyrotechnics of John Frusciante.

The band does dabble in other genres at times, adding the occasional dub bass-line or throwaway punk tune onto each album. It’s the musical equivalent of putting rainbow sprinkles on vanilla ice cream: colorful, but with no real flavor.

Incubus plods forward, releasing records that attempt to substitute the occasional nuance for actual substance. At this point, the only thing that sets the band apart from other mediocre rock bands is it has been around for a while.

On Incubus’ latest and sixth album, ‘Light Grenades,’ the group returns with a ho-hum set of songs that is haunted by a lack of cohesion.

‘Light Grenades’ begins awkwardly. The opening track, ‘Quicksand,’ is a piece of murky electronic noodling that serves no real purpose, while ‘A Kiss to Send Us Off’ feels like a time portal to crappy rock radio circa 1999. Luckily there are no covers of ‘With Arms Wide Open’ to be found on the disc.

The smell of predictability is palpable on the new album. Lead single ‘Anna Molly’ and songs like ‘Rogues’ or ‘Love Hurts’ seem as if they were created on a rock assembly line, not in a studio.

Still, Incubus might be worse when it actually tries to do something new. The title track is a deliberate System of a Down rip-off, complete with screeching guitars, jagged time changes and Boyd doing his best to howl lyrics like ‘Come on, remember who you are.’ It’s just a disaster.

Pretension rears its ugly head later in the two-part song suite ‘Earth to Bella.’ The pair of tracks wants to be the group’s stab at prog-rock, only the music sounds like it’s being played inside a tin can.

Not everything is terrible. Boyd’s voice comes through on ‘Dig,’ while the Cars-style riff of ‘Diamonds and Coal’ swings well. Besides that, it’s another lackluster release from Boyd and Co. ‘Light Grenades’ is a portrait of a band stuck in a creative rut.

Published on November 27, 2006 at 12:00 pm