Incubus Among Us...6th studio album Light Grenades bombarding our senses

Incubus Among Us
6th studio album Light Grenades bombarding our senses
By Faizul Khan Tanim

When South-Asian fans like me fervently anticipate an alter rock band album from the West, it means that the group has jolted and wowed our imagination with its ostentatious lyrics and mind-blowing tunes. From the thousands of international albums released from the United States (some of which are way below standard), Incubus's music actually makes me restless craving for more.
Listening to the pre-released track Anna Molly – a pure Incubus rock and hearing the album name, I thought that it would be an explosive album with emphasis on heavy rebellious rock. Instead, the quintet gave 13 songs composed from different Incubus-phases. Listening to the CD, I have come to the conclusion that the title track Light Grenades is a riveting track as it is filled with a nu-metal-ish hard hitting sound. The track literally explodes…exciting you to head bang and mosh; when performed in a gig I mean. With speedy creative guitar riffs and a very technical composition, it's one of the best from the album. Brandon Boyd's nu-metal screams and the energetic drumming makes this into a platinum number. In a recent interview with Kerrang! Brandon Boyd gave some interesting facts about the songs from the new album. Brandon, on what inspired the album's title Light Grenades: 'there's a song called that on the record and it felt like the most pertinent conceptual aspect of the album, the idea of throwing ideas at problems and the ideas explode with good results and intention on consciousness,' Boyd muses. 'So, I started imagining students in different countries protesting and throwing Molotov cocktails with masks over their faces. But there's one brave student who runs up to the police line and, as opposed to throwing rocks, offers ideas. It just seemed like a cool concept.'
The ballads Oil and Water and Love Hurts bring in a gust of sentimental values. The vocal tunes sounded mushy, in a good way, and probably because of the lyrics. The charm of these two songs is the simplicity. The chorus especially, in Oil and Water sings with striking vocal harmony: Babe, this wouldn't be the first time..It will not be the last time..We were trying to believe everything would get better. It surely creates waves of nostalgia!Quicksand is a very atmospheric song and it was presented as an intro; but in my opinion the track should have been in the middle. However, it sounded like a fusion work of East and West where Boyd is chanting religious hymns with dark electronic sound effects complimenting it.Mellow pop-rock tracks Dig and Diamonds and Coal are typical incubus tracks featuring lots of electronic and guitar effects. Great thing about these two are that they sound very catchy.The lyrics in this album also circles around Boyd's contemporary thoughts provoked by what is happening all around us. Ever since their debut, Incubus continued to make consistent records. Their songs are catchy, full of exciting riffs, creative compositions and uses immense electronic effects making great contemporary rock songs and as a matter of fact 'Light Grenades' is worth owning.

Article Published in: January 25, 2007 Issue of Glitz, the entertainment weekly from NewAGE.