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Beck continues search with his 'Modern Guilt'
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Monday, Jul 21, 2008
Beck has long been a hipster favorite due in part to his musical everything-and-the-kitchen-sink eclecticism.
Throughout his busy 10-album career (he released three albums in 1994 alone), his music has been a pastiche of genres and styles from rock, folk, funk, disco, tropicalia, hip-hop and others. His ability to filter all those influences through his own creative lens usually makes his albums interesting to listen to and engenders anticipation as to what's next, typified by the difference between the lightweight, fun and funky Midnite Vultures and its follow-up, the low-key, folk-infused post-breakup lament Sea Change.
Since that nearly universally hailed album, Beck seems to have settled into what could be called the ''Beck Sound.'' Both 2005's underwhelming Guero, which found Beck looking back to his breakthrough Odelay era, and 2006's hip-hop-influenced The Information sounded like standard Beck. They aren't bad records, but the element of surprise is gone.
Two years later, Beck has teamed up with super-hot producer Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, The Rapture, The Black Keys) and the duo have produced Modern Guilt, an economical 10-track, 33-minute collection of musically pleasant if occasionally lyrically ominous tunes, with a heavy 1960s rock influence and no extra musical fat or twists and turns.
The opener, Orphans, featuring harmony vocals from Chan Marshall aka Cat Power, sets the tone for much of the album with a lazy backbeat, easy strummed guitar and Beck intoning in his lower register, ''And how can I make new again / what rusts every time it rains / and the rain it comes and floods our lungs / we're just orphans in a tidal wave's wake.''
The '60s influence is most pronounced on the dreamy Chemtrails, which finds Beck using a floating Brian Wilson-like falsetto and melody over an active rhythm section that recalls the groovy orchestrations of David Axelrod. The bouncy groove of the title track belies the fear and confusion in the lyrics: ''Modern guilt, I'm under lock and key / misapprehension is turning into convention / don't know what I've done but I feel ashamed.''
But Modern Guilt isn't all midtempo laments. Gamma Ray skips along on a peppy beat, Youthless has a lightly funky groove and some of his famously obtuse lyrical images, while the self-questioning Replica has a stuttering Radiohead-like distorted electronic beat.
The album ends with Volcano, a slow, crawling, world-weary and world-wary song. ''I'm tired of evil and all that it feeds, but I don't know,'' Beck sings in the same woe-filled voice that fueled much of Sea Change. ''I've been drifting on this wave so long, don't know if it's already crashed on the shore.''
Modern Guilt doesn't pack the emotional punch of Sea Change, but it is more focused and affecting than its immediate predecessors, as Beck does seem to be searching for something both inside and outside himself.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Beck has long been a hipster favorite due in part to his musical everything-and-the-kitchen-sink eclecticism.
Get the full article here.
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