Spring Break
Beck's latest album blends dark lyrics, bright melodies
Erin Shea
Issue date: 9/9/08 Section: Entertainment
09/09/08 - Beck, the man whose career never dies, is back with his 10th album, Modern Guilt, and the genre-hopping postmodernist doesn't disappoint in this surprisingly cohesive blend of psychedelia, folk, pop, blues and funk.
Modern Guilt is exactly the album anyone who's followed Beck's career throughout the years would expect it to be. Beck's never been known to stick to one formula for long, and this album is no exception.
Following the release of two lighter, more Odelay-inspired records (2005's Guero and 2006's Information,) it was high time for a return to the darker territories of Sea Change.
From the moment Beck opens his mouth on "Orphans," it's clear this record is no Odelay. It does, however, share Odelay's penchant for bright melodies, making it less of a melancholy record than Sea Change, or even Mutations; this comes across most clearly on the album's radio-friendly first single, "Gamma Ray."
Even "Gamma Ray" though, for all its' 60s swinger-style throwback guitars and spliced vocals, can't disguise twisted lyrics like "Your brains are bored /Like a refugee /From a house that's burning."
"Gamma Ray" is followed up by "Chemtrails," a beautiful psychedelic ramble that's reminiscent of the tranquil timelessness of "We Live Again."
Unfortunately, "Chemtrails" suffers from Beck's penchant for over-indulgence, as he kicks it up to just the right notch with slightly frenetic drumming in the second half of the song, but then ruins it with a gratuitous guitar solo at the end.
Luckily, that blunder is saved by the cool funk of the title track. "Modern Guilt" showcases Beck's vocals at their best: bluesy and drowsy, they slide over the punctuated guitars and drums with ease, creating a contrast that emphasizes the paranoia that permeates the song and the album as a whole.
The credit for the success of Modern Guilt doesn't belong solely to Beck though. Danger Mouse, who produced the album, let this be Beck's show, allowing the songs to remain quintessentially Beck - a skill frequent Beck producer Nigel Godrich didn't seem to have. Godrich frequently made the final cuts too clean to fit the songs' genre-jumping arrangements.
Danger Mouse, however, isn't afraid to add in a random vocal splice for spontaneity's sake, and that adds a freshness to Modern Guilt that other recent albums have lacked.
The pair of misfit experimentalists could have easily created an overly-ambitious album, but instead they created a tightly-wound half-an-hour of songs that balance out lyrics and melodies in such a way that keeps it from becoming too brooding and bogged-down, as some of Beck's songs have been in the past.
The blues rock on "Soul of a Man," for example, gives the song a bravado that melds perfectly with lyrics like "Sic a dog on all you know/Cut it loose before you go."
Beck's bravado is gone by the time "Volcano" rolls around though - it's a closer that ends Modern Guilt with an acknowledgement of all the hidden dark edges the album contains, a way to showcase the album's true colors for a moment before it fades off, leaving us waiting for album number eleven.
Modern Guilt is exactly the album anyone who's followed Beck's career throughout the years would expect it to be. Beck's never been known to stick to one formula for long, and this album is no exception.
Following the release of two lighter, more Odelay-inspired records (2005's Guero and 2006's Information,) it was high time for a return to the darker territories of Sea Change.
From the moment Beck opens his mouth on "Orphans," it's clear this record is no Odelay. It does, however, share Odelay's penchant for bright melodies, making it less of a melancholy record than Sea Change, or even Mutations; this comes across most clearly on the album's radio-friendly first single, "Gamma Ray."
Even "Gamma Ray" though, for all its' 60s swinger-style throwback guitars and spliced vocals, can't disguise twisted lyrics like "Your brains are bored /Like a refugee /From a house that's burning."
"Gamma Ray" is followed up by "Chemtrails," a beautiful psychedelic ramble that's reminiscent of the tranquil timelessness of "We Live Again."
Unfortunately, "Chemtrails" suffers from Beck's penchant for over-indulgence, as he kicks it up to just the right notch with slightly frenetic drumming in the second half of the song, but then ruins it with a gratuitous guitar solo at the end.
Luckily, that blunder is saved by the cool funk of the title track. "Modern Guilt" showcases Beck's vocals at their best: bluesy and drowsy, they slide over the punctuated guitars and drums with ease, creating a contrast that emphasizes the paranoia that permeates the song and the album as a whole.
The credit for the success of Modern Guilt doesn't belong solely to Beck though. Danger Mouse, who produced the album, let this be Beck's show, allowing the songs to remain quintessentially Beck - a skill frequent Beck producer Nigel Godrich didn't seem to have. Godrich frequently made the final cuts too clean to fit the songs' genre-jumping arrangements.
Danger Mouse, however, isn't afraid to add in a random vocal splice for spontaneity's sake, and that adds a freshness to Modern Guilt that other recent albums have lacked.
The pair of misfit experimentalists could have easily created an overly-ambitious album, but instead they created a tightly-wound half-an-hour of songs that balance out lyrics and melodies in such a way that keeps it from becoming too brooding and bogged-down, as some of Beck's songs have been in the past.
The blues rock on "Soul of a Man," for example, gives the song a bravado that melds perfectly with lyrics like "Sic a dog on all you know/Cut it loose before you go."
Beck's bravado is gone by the time "Volcano" rolls around though - it's a closer that ends Modern Guilt with an acknowledgement of all the hidden dark edges the album contains, a way to showcase the album's true colors for a moment before it fades off, leaving us waiting for album number eleven.
