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":

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“Satisfied”

Only the genius of Tom Waits could combine the subject of mortality, a reoccurring theme in his work, with wordplay that name checks both Mick and Keith, whom he calls "Mr. Jagger" and "Mr. Richards," and the title of their magnum opus, "Satisfaction." And to show just how cool Waits really is, he even got Mr. Richards to play along, one of nine guest appearances the guitarist has made on three Waits albums. "This growling roadhouse stomp is a late-breaking response to the Stones' greatest hit," Rolling Stone said of the track.