![]() The former’s guitar solo feels too hastily contrived, while the latter piano-driven tune contains none of the noisy, avant-garde nuances that have kicked it up a notch in past works. I just couldn’t get past the obvious: “Adolescents” and “Promises, Promises” are the most defusing Incubus singles in years. ![]() Some fans sang along wholeheartedly just the same guess the die-hards are thoroughly enjoying the new album’s down-tempo direction. These were the elements – now seemingly abandoned – that once incited the band’s ardent crowds into characteristic frenzied moshing that could just as easily give way to groovy euphoria. Overall, the disc’s eleven tracks are unerringly pleasant, but there’s nothing nearly as jolting as “Sick Sad Little World” (off 2004’s A Crow Left of the Murder…) or as entrancing as the Eastern-toned “Aqueous Transmission” (the dreamy closer from the band’s 2001 best-seller, Morning View). ![]() This record favors a more concise, Coldplay-esque vibe the outfit’s once scratch-happy DJ, Chris Kilmore, mans soft-spoken keys more often than his turntables. ![]() The result was a work even the group has referred to constantly in interviews as “a risk”: it’s a completely stripped-back version of their music, lacking any of those overpowering walls of distorted guitar Einziger inserted into every other project. The July release followed a five-year hiatus, during which the group’s members pursued solo projects, solitude and higher education (guitarist Mike Einziger spent time at Harvard studying music composition). After listening to Incubus’ latest full-length – If Not Now, When?, their seventh – I had reservations about how their live show would play out Saturday at Irvine’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.
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