How does INCUBUS do it?

i have been an incubus fan for more than what....the last 8 years and still i cant get enough of em', its their style, the off-beat time-signatured melodies, the deep poetic lyrics, the soulful movement on stage..nothing like the life of a musician eh?getting free stuff, free food, free everything..as Brandon Boyd would put it (he's the vocalist, a giveaway to those who don't share my passion) "We are getting paid to have fun.." now who wouldn't want that kind of career? you said it brotha...


i have been tracking down on their albums, listening intently on every note and lyric, and i have noticed that they never stick to one rhythm, one genre per se..yeah yeah its still good old rock but on every album they tend to shift..listen to the first album FUNGUS AMONGUS and in that album they sounded raw, yeah because it was their first album. now artist tend to commit a lot of mistakes on their first albums and then refine on the next and so on and so forth, but INCUBUS gave out a different sound, at their time..they sounded like techie sound guy meets rock meets literary genius, at their time the turntable wasn't the usual band instrument but they mixed it so damn well that it started a whole new era of rock...

couple of years after S.C.I.E.N.C.E. album came out and they sounded different now, deeper melodies, heavier riffs, more complex sound off the DJ and the not-so-surprising work of art lyrics..this time incubus sounded that they came out from a laboratory of sound and just concocted a strong dose of music serum that would create such auditory orgasm (now thats poetry ahem)...

again years after the amazing science album plus other EP's came out (when incubus attacks), the band produced yet another masterpiece, and its one of my favorite albums ever in music history, MAKE YOURSELF. Now this album rocked, the most famous song of the band entitled Pardon Me, which i know every incubus fan loves...its a classic..the way the guitar fades out and pounds in the chorus part..aaahhhh..bliss!


their next project sounded warmer, MORNING VIEW was more californian if you ask me, well they hail from the west coast so i guess its a given, the album was more emotional and had a lot of deep meanings involving the opposite-sex-attraction thingie, and there was one track i loved that sounded like it could be a background music for a japanese drama, the track was Aqueous Transmission, it had a japanese instrument used, i don't know the name and i would like to call it the japanese guitar..hehe..and that album had more love songs than any of the incubus albums i ever had

now the break-out album CROW LEFT OF THE MURDER..i was confused by the title until i knew that you call a group of crows not a flock but a murder so there you go. the songs on this album were different, maybe of course of the arrival of their new bassist (forgot the name but i know that he used to play for The Roots...) they sounded modern and stiff but they still pulled it off nicely, one song i particularly enjoyed was Southern Girl..the lyrics was so right on, so different yet so easy to relate to..

and last but not the least the arrival of their newest album LIGHT GRENADES...i heard some of the tracks and they were pretty good, and again they have a new feel to their music, still sensing remnants from the later album but they again had enough talent to figure a way to mix it up and keep it fresh..now i ask you again..how does INCUBUS do it? having had 6 LP albums and a couple of EP's, soundtracks and the like, they still manage to keep their sound fresh..maybe there are just people who are born and made for that. whats also good about them its because they have been friends for years now even before their band hit it big, they have been on this industry for more that 15 years but still they crawl out of the woodwork sounding new and unique yet familiar...its the talent, the friendship and the fun that they have that i admire..i may not live that kind of life, though if tasted a teeny bit of that being a musician myself, but i could say nothing beats the real thing...its official, I'm abducted by them..more albums!