When most people, including myself before finding this album, think o’ the band Incubus, they think o’ the soft rock band with early-2000s serene songs like “Drive” & “Wish You Were Here”, a strange contrast to the origin o’ their namesake, a fairy tale daemon that tries to rape women in their sleep. So I was surprised when I found this album in 1 o’ my mom’s boyfriend’s many CD cases, tried it out, & heard something heavier & crazier, sounding much mo’ like Linkin Park if thy were jazzier & mo’ experimental with instrumentation — ’cept predating their fame-defining Hybrid Theory by 3 years ( & Incubus’s 1st album, Fungus Amongus, predating the band Linkin Park e’en in its earliest form, uh… well, Hybrid Theory ). In hindsight, I came to learn that this album & Incubus’s earliest incarnation was heavily inspired by Faith No More & Mr. Bugle — much like pretty much e’ery nu-metal band; but I would still defend this album’s thematic focus on sci-fi & mo’ consistent music style in contrast to Faith No More’s hodgepodge o’ styles as, while not being as good, having its own identity & appeal.

1. Redefine

The best song on the album, & a great general look @ this album’s style, with its deep but noisy opening ( which was apparently done with a didgeridoo played by lead singer Brandon Boyd himself ) building with Boyd’s calm but speedy & scattered poetic ramblings, culminating in a rise in tone during the chorus, which sounds like the wails o’ a madman, & then finally @ the end where the end o’ the 2nd verse is repeated, but shouted. I love all the li’l variations in Boyd’s tone thruout the verses & the imagist & specific lyrics, with such oddities as, “it’s in your nature, you can paint whatever picture you like / no matter what ted koppel says on channel 4 tonight”.

Grade: S

2. Vitamin

A slower, mo’ brooding track with mo’ physical, biological lyrics than the previous’s abstract vibes, as well as a mo’ pessimistic tone: whereas the previous song rambled ’bout the possibilities o’ the future & criticized the limitations o’ the present, this song’s ravings o’ some possibly symbolic “vitamin” that induces sleep & complacency ­— “whatever helps you swallow truth more easily” — depicts future science as limiting humanity. It feels much less original — medicine dulling the human spirit is a cliché sci-fi trope — than the previous song’s depiction o’ the future as like a painting.

As for the sound, while the breakdown after the 2nd chorus is fun, it doesn’t fit in with the song’s tone; & while I do like the brooding basslines, the chorus doesn’t have a very compelling melody, & in general this song lacks the frenetic energy of other songs on this album.

Grade: B

3. New Skin

This song does the physical, biological feel much better with its tribal drums mixed with riffs that sound like they’re coming from some mysterious medical machine; & the sample o’ Buckminster Fuller’s strange monologue whose voice warps faster & higher pitched & slower & deeper as it goes is much mo’ memorable.

Grade: A

4. Idiot Box

This is an anti-TV song, which is cliché, — e’en ironically outdated in the future Incubus apparently couldn’t see in the near 21st century where TV would be supplanted by social media — but is saved a bit for me with its weird, vague way o’ expressing that sentiment & the weird way the singer sings the lyrics. Also, I just really like the main driving riff & all the disk scratches @ the end.

Grade: B

5. Glass

Oh man, that contrast o’ the jazzy bass with the distorted voice going, “¿why?”, & the calm, smoothly-sung verses gainst the abrupt shouting in the choruses. I also love how this is basically an antilove song bitching ’bout an asshole ex, but with a weird sci-fi style.

Grade: A

6. Magic Medicine

This is less a song & mo’ a weird sound experiment sampling what sounds like parts o’ some childrens’ education shows ’bove menacing deep beats. It won’t be the last. & then it ends with a sample o’ the educational-type voice giving a title drop, implying this is all a drug trip.

But the best part o’ this “song” is how it calls back to the previous track, “Glass”: that “¿why?” constantly in the background turns out to have come from this clip o’ the voice saying, “On this page you see a little girl giggling @ a hippopotamus. I wonder why…”.

Grade: S

7. A Certain Shade of Green

Like “Idiot Box”, this is a song with a cliché self-help message — don’t wait for someone else to tell you what to do to do something before having the confidence to do something — but told thru a strange metaphor o’ someone waiting for some nebulous street light turning green.

Sonically, this song has fun riffs, but seems to lack the precise identity & thematic ties that other songs have, making it feel like the most normal o’ songs on this album.

Grade: B

8. Favorite Things

This is basically a contrarian’s anthem. Honestly, Incubus really hammers in the “be yourself, be an individual” messages — not just on this album, but in their general discography going forward. I mean the album after this — the 1 with their hit “Drive” — is literally called Be Yourself.

& while I do like the driving riff & the the weird noises thru the verses, I feel other songs do these better — for instance, “Idiot Box” has a better similar driving riff.

Grade: B

9. Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song)

Now is the best time to take a break from the loud, electronic songs for a smooth, jazzy lougelike song ’bout love so strong it can fly past gravity, with nice, cheesy retrofuture lyrics ’bout “tin-can phones” & classy lines ’bout having a “rendezvous a quarter-to”. A quarter to what, we shall ne’er know. Perhaps it is none o’ our business.

Grade: S

10. Nebula

& then we get a song with a a barely-audible muffled child’s voice saying, “it smells like cheese”, followed by what sounds like a car alarm blaring on & on. & then we get pre-choruses & choruses where the singer goes apeshit, with the chorus literally following each line with goofy sound effects, & then the bridge has some ol’ documentary voice talking ’bout the “crab nebula”.

¿& you know the best part? ’Pon actually reading the lyrics, I’ve come to realize that this is a song ’bout nasty sex. Yes, the nebula is a woman’s vagina, which the singer also describes as “your nectarine of multiplicity” & “your tangerine of electricity […] ripe & on a vine” & how it “cums like orgasmatron”, which I can only imagine is a lot o’ cum, since I sure hope someone named “orgasmatron” is good @ orgasming. The singer himself “[…] let it pulse & boil within [his] limbs”, “lay [his] pencil to the porous page”, & “let [his] lunatic indulge itself”. Amazing.

Grade: 🦀

11. Deep Inside

This is like a mix o’ “Summer Romance” & a lot o’ the other songs, with smooth loungelike verses followed by shouted choruses. While I like the weird vocal inflections Boyd makes during the bridge, the rest o’ this song, while not bad, seems less interesting than similar songs on this album. Same goes for the whole vague “I don’t know where I am” theme.

Grade: B

12. Calgone

On an album full o’ songs where Brandon Boyd crashes out & goes apeshit, the last song may be 1 o’ the craziest, with the singer shouting ’bout how crazy his day was, only to mo’ calmly sing that he must’ve woke up on the wrong side o’ the bed. Said crazy day was the protagonist getting abducted by aliens & anal probed because he had to walk home after his car ran out o’ gas ’cause he wasted gas waiting while the police pulled him o’er. As you do.

Grade: 👽

13. Segue 1

I don’t know why this is called “Segue 1”, ’cause there is no tracks afterward.

This track is honestly the biggest reason I wanted to review this album: I’m going to declare this track the greatest hidden track o’ all time ( note: in the original release o’ this album, this is hidden @ the end o’ track 12, while streaming services don’t bother with that charade ). What this track is is 10 minutes o’ weird sound experiments, including:

• Some nasally doctor seeming to list off someone’s patient history while vocalizing e’ery punctuation while beats start building
• Vile laughter o’er heavy noise
• Some weird string noises I can’t e’en describe just before someone in a cheesy leprechaun voice threatens to “lick your sucking balls off”
• What sounds like a triangle being banged before a cartoon character shouts, “¡SOUGHT!”, followed by the sound o’ an explosion
• Some dope whiteboy rippity raps that, indeed, can’t get “fresher than this”, followed by a blaxploitation voice saying, “I know it’s not PC, but sometimes you gotta put the smackdown on a ho” o’er funk music
• What sounds like an attempt to emulate Michigan J. Frog from Looney Tunes
• The absolute best: sounds o’ someone playing Space Invaders with the sound panning from left to right & right to left in the earphones like the aliens do in Space Invaders
• Some weird reenactment o’ The Karate Kid
• Some weasel-voiced kid saying, “8 fuckin’ tracks, you can make a lot o’ shit”
• Some weird alien singing that sounds like it belongs in a Wario Ware game
• & then this all ends with the sounds o’ a phone beeping, someone panting heavily into the phone, & then someone saying, “Hello”

To add to the surrealism, apparently the Michigan J. Frog & The Karate Kid shit came from a song called “Show Me Your Titz” by Hoobastank o’ all people, from an apparently infamously bizarre early album from them called “Muffins” — before they also turned to soft rock — that I kinda wanna try out sometime, too.

Grade: S

Conclusion

It says something that e’en tho I already liked this album a lot, I have come to appreciate it better on review, especially the songs I previously took for granted, like “Nebula”. I think nu-metal would have been appreciated a lot mo’ if more o’ it was this weird experimental shit & less unironic tough-guy or whiny shit.

Final Grade: A