An Inkling For Incubus
"We’ve got a lot of material from a lot of different records, so you know, a setlist is kind of a journey from beginning to end.” They’re not kidding. INCUBUS notched up their 20th year in 2011, and the current album, If Not Now, When, is their seventh. As long as we’re into numbers – there are five of them, they’ve had four number ones in the US, they’ve visited Australia a half dozen times and they recorded the new album in six weeks.
For a band with a history of complex instrumentation and very slick production, that’s really fast. “We didn’t spend too much time writing the music beforehand, we just sort of left it for the studio. We got into the studio, worked out an idea for a song right there and then over a few hours, and then just recorded it.” The recording process of If Not Now, When pushed Incubus out of their comfort zone, which isn’t easy for a group of guys who have kept it together for two decades. Incubus have been working hard this time around, touring non-stop since June of last year. They celebrated Christmas by playing a show, they fêted guitarist Mike Einzinger’s birthday on the road, and their 20 year anniversary. “It was actually November, which means we were on tour, so you know…".
All of this is great news for the man or lady in the crowd, who will be getting an extremely tight show as a result. When Incubus grace the boards at Canberra’s Royal Theatre, they will have played Europe, the Middle East, Britain, the USA, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, and a couple of dates in Australia just to warm up. The word on the street (ie their agency) is that the set will be a real crowd pleaser, starring all of the favourites interspersed with material from the new album.
Critical opinion has been divided by If Not Now, When. Frontman Brandon Boyd has described it as “darker, slower, more rich, more refined, and more involved than anything Incubus has birthed to date.” It’s an accurate statement that touches on a couple of salient points. The lyrics are definitely darker in tone than the uplifting Make Yourself and Morning View; Boyd describes himself as an “empty well”, he “dines on ashes” and he even gives a nod to the Australian summer – “Your smiles are… a slap upon a back that's been toiling in the sun.” But the darkness often doesn’t reach the music, which was described by Consequence of Sound as “slow, elevator-music-style [and] lazy”. Antiquiet (ironically) hit back, calling it a “gentle reaffirmation” and supporting Boyd’s assertion that the band were “searching for a sense of balance between all of the possibilities inherent in crafting a song”. In essence, the band have rocked, trip-hopped, discoed, progged, jazzed (seriously! Listen to Anti-Gravity Love Song on Science) and definitely popped, so… where to next? As it turns out, a mix of acoustic rock and angsty folk moments, with some strong choruses thrown in to keep ears perked.
So the new material could have been a difficult sell, even to an audience that has faithfully followed the band’s journey down the genre rabbit-hole. Incubus’ drummer Jose Pasillas knew it going into this enormous tour, but reports a favourable crowd response. “It’s definitely a different approach for us, it’s mellow from beginning to end, so I think we caught a lot of people off guard… but it’s been a really good response. Taking it out on tour and seeing a lot of people being really accepting of it has been great.”
Part of the explanation for the good response could be a really strong closing section that rewards the long listen – the band finally funks out Chili Peppers-style on Switchblade and the pseudo-‘40s film score strings that end the record are a pleasure to the ear after so many long, sustained, evenly-paced pop pieces. What’s really important about this latest album is that it fills in a section of the Incubus canvas that has heretofore been left blank. The power and scope of this band’s catalogue place them firmly in the top tier of touring acts, particularly that choice fraction that deign to visit Canberra.
The beauty of Incubus is that you can’t pin them down. They’re not hard rockers with choreographed Pantene hair-flips. They’re not young punks who are still touring on a young punk platform late into their 30s. They’ve never even been pinned down to a single sound for the length of a record. The surplus of talent shared by Boyd, Pasillas, Einzinger and the rest of the cast spills over as an unpredictable and dynamic musical exploration, and after such a long time together, they have to keep it a little unpredictable to keep it alive. In Jose’s words, “we’ve always had that sort of element. Each record we leave a couple of songs for the studio… we do it to keep out of our comfort zones.” That same element manifests itself in their live shows, meaning no two shows are the same. “They’re two different animals altogether. It’s just a different experience.” So if you have half an inkling to catch Incubus at The Royal Theatre, make it a full inkling, and expect the kind of musical smorgasbord that you can only build out of a string of fascinating albums and 20 years of hard touring.
Catch Incubus live at The Royal Theatre on Saturday February 4. Tickets cost between $50 - $89.90 + bf and are available through Ticketek.
