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http://www.rollingstone.com/assets/images/album_review/da26a452018940938575b1485f70caf914b999c3.jpg If Not Now, When?

Incubus

If Not Now, When?

Epic
Rolling Stone: star rating
Community: star rating
5 2.5 0
21
July 14, 2011

Brandon Boyd’s game has decayed a bit. On his band’s first album in five years, the Incubus heartthrob — who once tugged at TRL viewers’ heartstrings with the riffed-out sugar shot "Stellar" — is telling his beloved she’s "light like a feather, bright like a dying star" on "Switchblade." Just as Boyd’s lyrics have gone a little soft, so Incubus’ seventh album dilutes the hard-edged funk rock of their early-2000s peak popularity into slick, inert ripples of interchangeable power pop. Incubus retain some of their early, macabre nerdiness (the harmony-bedecked "Tomorrow’s Food" reminds us of our dirt-bound mortality), but, for all the energy, the melodies fail to ignite.

Listen to "In The Company of Wolves":

Related
Video: Incubus Discuss Weeklong Series of L.A. Shows

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