SOUND BITES

I was looking forward to an Incubus album for the first time in over a decade. After the blatantly star-reaching Light Grenades , the lifeless If Not Now, When? and the tentative EP Trust Fall , a pair of singles had me cautiously optimistic for 8 , Incubus' first full-length in about six years. Nimble Bastard and Glitterbomb were energetic, vibrant singles and, while they posed no threat to the band's artistic peak, I was at least assured that they intended on following through on Trust Fall 's momentum. A funny thing happened on the way to this album's release, though; as the story goes, Skrillex was brought to the studio while Incubus was well into the sessions for 8 , and proceeded to try his hand at mixing one of the tunes. The band liked what they heard, and subsequently commissioned mixes for the songs they'd already completed. This included Nimble Bastard (which had already been serviced to radio and streaming), the song that got me excited for the re...

Talk about slowing down. After a run of six worthy, interesting studio albums between 1995 and 2006, Incubus has taken their sweet time releasing music since; a half-decade waited was rewarded with tepid, toothless seventh record If Not Now, When? in 2011 and, nearly four more years later, the band has released twenty minutes worth of music with the promise of more to come once they finish their upcoming summer tour plans. Trust Fall (Side A) has higher stakes than perhaps any Incubus release before it; not only does it have the unenviable task of following up the most coolly received record of their career, it's also their first release for new label Island following a long tenure with Epic. It's on the band to not only move units for the label, but also to reestablish themselves with fans who may have otherwise jumped ship. Accordingly, Trust Fall (Side A) finds Incubus in mea culpa mode; from the friendly, low-risk entry fee (I paid $5 for the CD, but you might wan...

INCUBUS Adolescents From: If Not Now, When? Released: July 12 Here's a free piece of advice, hard rock bands: if your fans are yelling out that you've gone soft (as many did when Incubus released Light Grenades in 2006), don't make them wait five years for a follow-up (as Incubus did) only to release an album so tepid and testosterone-challenged that it makes the previous "soft" album look like Reign in Blood .  Incubus' seventh album If Not Now, When? is just that laughably light, that unflinchingly soft, that it warrants a serious examination of the band's head space.  The album was preceded in April by first single Adolescents , which turned out to be the only logical choice since it's the only thing on this lukewarm platter that resembles the Incubus anyone ever liked (and is the only thing worth mentioning for Year in Rock; to be honest, the album is so bad that I almost refused Adolescents ' nomination).  This is seriously the heavi...