If Not Now, When?

A new album and new questions from Incubus

Well, that’s the right question. If not now, when would the Californian quintet Incubus have released their new record? If Not Now, When? saw the light of days five long and strange years after the release of Light Grenades. Then, in 2006, the Americans once more changed their music course, bringing the future of the band into the heavy and dark clouds. The question was not if Incubus would carry on, but what kind of Incubus it would be. It turned out that the musicians did not know the answer either. The vocalist Brandon Boyd even took time to record a solo effort as if preparing a way put in case of the quintet’s collapse. But what may threaten to a band where each member is a top-level performer? The new record from Incubus brings no insight into the situation. For the five years between the two latest releases, Incubus have again experienced something serious and difficult. Was it maturing? A creative search? An attempt to start all over? The music of If Not Now, When? is pleasing with brilliant execution, completeness of all ideas and clarity of statements, but this is just some other band’s music, not Incubus.

No hard left, only rock remained

You can forget Incubus the alternative or Incubus the hard rockers. The musicians put on restraint jackets, turned down the volume and leashed their own selves. This is what may come into a head of anyone who has been a long time Incubus fan. The only song with traces of the past hard rock energy is Switchblade. It is a track that sounds a lot like those off the band’s early releases, but it looks like a stranger here. Instead, the ballad Promises, Promises comes in handy and might illustrate the new sounding with guitars pushed out by piano. A decision was taken to put aside heavy and thick riffs. Now, the drive of the music is the sole responsibility of the drums, reluctant to work hard without the decent support of shied guitars. Boyd, the vocalist, prefers to stick to middle register, rarely taking high notes, which makes his voice softer and more confident. The lyrics, which, as usual, are a pleasure to thoughtful listeners, are now easier to understand with this kind of singing. In The Company Of Wolves is a huge song, which is not traditional for Incubus, and it stands proud like an iceberg high above the rest of the set. This is the only opportunity for the musicians to set free their creative outburst. The song is likely to be one of the band’s biggest things on the stage. Besides, it is decorated with beautiful and dramatic lyrics.

Incubus fluctuation

Although Incubus use the eponymous first track off their new album to think over what to play here, presenting a mix of everything they used to play in different times, the rest of If Not Now, When? follows a radical new course. Thieves, or The Original might have been much rougher and darker, had the musicians not preferred to hide their softened guitars in synthesizers and an atmosphere of summer and warmth. All of this sounds truly nice and from time to time brings in associations with, for instance, U2, being some sort of intellectual rock for the chosen ones. Everything is good except what are the American band’s veteran fans supposed to say to this? First, they were kept waiting several years for the new album, and now it appears that it has nothing left of their favorite’s old sound. If Not Now, When? Once again solidifies the high class of Incubus musicians, who, without harming the quality of the material, passed over to a new direction, but it gives to questions to what this band is going to be like in the years to come.