Incubus released their greatest hits two-disc album, Monuments and Melodies on June 16th, 2009. The first disc, appropriately named, Monuments, stacks a collection of the band’s 13 most successful songs such as “Drive”, “Are You In?”, “Megalomaniac” and “Love Hurts” between the discs’s opener, “Black Heart Inertia” and closer “Midnight Swim” – both of which are the band’s two newest tracks. With three songs from Make Yourself, four songs from Morning View, two songs from A Crow Left of the Murder and four songs from their most recent album, Light Grenades, Monuments covers the logical bases of economic success that a geatest hits album naturally calls for. The second disc, Melodies, assuages the cravings of the more devoted fan through a combination of eleven b-sides, unreleased songs, as well as rarities such as a Prince cover of “Let’s Go Crazy.” The truly loyal fan with expectations to hear Incubus’ more primitive work from Fungus Amongus, the Enjoy Incubus E.P. or S.C.I.E.N.C.E, will be sadly disappointed, regardless of the inclusion of a laid back acoustic version of “A Certain Shade of Green”.
“Black Heart Inertia”, Incubus’ newest single resurrects a familiar aural experience placed somewhere between A Crow Left of the Murder and Light Grenades. Mike Einziger’s warm and tastefully distorted guitar tone dances between a repetitive, but well grooved set of chord changes. His lead guitar work, although impressive, detracts from the song upon its whinny and crying entrance around the 2:50 mark. The weakness of this song is curious considering Einziger’s recent jaunt for Harvard to study music composition (“Black Heart Inertia” was recorded during his winter break). The insipid chorus and over-tried guitar and bass solos combined with Brandon Boyd’s forced lyricsbegs the question: Why is this song placed as the opener to some of the greatest rock songs of the past decade? The chorus’s lyrics, “You’re a mountain that I’d like to climb, / Not to conquer, but to share in the view” suggests Boyd’s search for a relationship of mutuality and void of competition – a rousing concept that fails to fully get across especially when frustratingly vague lyrics such as “Pulled by false inertia/ Pushed out by circumstance” immediately follow.
“Midnight Swim,” on the other hand, is saturated with the anthemic song writing qualities that Incubus is so well known for. Boyd’s use of a wordless bridge that follows the second chorus allows his doubled vocals to traverse through the beat, provided by drummer, Jose Pasillas, whose obvious upbeat energy, and fastidiously placed fills and tempo changes allow this song to organically grow and pleasantly fall. Aesthetically, “Black Heart Inertia” and “Midnight Swim” both belong on the Melodies portion of this two-disc album, but there is probably an esoteric marketing strategy as to why they put the two new songs on the first disc.
Three highlights from the second disc, Melodies, are “Pantomime”, an altered version of a B-side to A Crow Left of the Murder, and two previously unreleased songs, “Martini” and “While All the Vultures Feed”. Martini explicates the band’s more bluesy side, through Einziger’s catchy guitar lick that grooves the soul of the verse, while Boyd’s cascading voice reaches low-end sonic levels rarely heard in other tunes. “Pantomime” begins with an ethereal atmosphere of electronic noises that harmoniously builds both musically and lyrically. Einziger’s surf rock tone and seductive guitar work mimics Boyd’s seductive voicing and lyrics. “In my fantasy you look good entwined/ In my hair and skin and spit and sweat and spilled red wine/ You’re my deep secret/ I’m your pantomime/ I’ll just move my hands/ I promise you’ll see what I mean” function as the closing lyrics just before Einziger erupts into a scorching and beastly solo to prove not only the ingenuity of his guitar skills, but also his genius of the band’s composition – the irresistible synergy between lyrics and sound is uncanny. “While All the Vultures Feed” allows bassist, (if recorded after 2001) Ben Kenney (of The Roots), to shine through a grove that evokes Incubus’ inner Rage Against Machine, while allowing, as expected, Einziger to create another original and impressive signal-screech like lead guitar tone.
The two-disc album comes with twenty-six songs and artwork by Brandon Boyd if you buy the hard copy; the band also offers a four LP record combination from their website. Purchasing the album on Incubus’ website, EnjoyIncubus.com, allows buyers to gain access via code found in the album to their ‘Vault’, which is basically a treasure chest of 120+ songs, 160+ videos and 500+ photos. The Vault will continue to be updated with more content well into August, as it has just launched. Although buying the iTunes version of the album includes a bonus live version of “Pardon Me” from Make Yourself, you will miss out on receiving a code to the Vault and the included artwork by Brandon Boyd.
3 1/2 out of 5.