Brandon Boyd Gets (Relatively) Wild

After nearly two decades in the limelight with Incubus, Brandon Boyd has released his first solo album into the wild. The Wild Trapeze was an experience of relative isolation, building temples out of sketch structures he’d arranged over the years, and the end result is an intimate, artistically indulgent walk through the heart of one of Rock’s most recognizable frontmen.

In his own words:

“This group of songs was born of a very different process than the many my band and I have been employing for our almost two decades at work now. The Wild Trapeze began as pot induced meanderings on my dusty acoustic guitar while Incubus was off of the road, and has slowly been morphing into things that I originally could never have imagined.  So much of my identity, both personally and creatively has been attached to and related to Incubus. For better or worse! And I do believe that every person in every corner of the world asks themselves at some point on their ride, ‘Who am I…today?’ The Wild Trapeze is an exercise in self reliance.”

Brandon’s desire to make this album a personal, untethered experience of what he calls “Music for Music’s Sake” led to very limited collaboration. He handles most instrumentation on Trapeze, as well as having designed the album’s artwork and co-directed the video for Runaway Train with esteemed photographer Brantley Gutierrez. Dave Fridmann (MGMT, The Flaming Lips) was recruited for production, and worked with Boyd on the record in upstate New York over the past few months.

While I’m not much of a method actor, it’s truly been a while since I’ve been in an Incubus headspace, so I took it upon myself to grab some granola, roll a joint and climb to a sun-kissed Malibu hilltop to give this a fair and proper-mindset listen. And though much of the album could fit snugly into an Incubus playlist, it’s best not to forget that these ten tracks are essentially glorified home recordings. Unpolished and somewhat raw, they represent Brandon’s personal artistic endeavors with a sense of immediate presence, amplified, no doubt, by the fact that the mics all seem turned up a little too high.

The title track is a promising start to Trapeze, with thundering drums and Brandon’s signature open-throated soulfulness that makes the patchouli princesses swoon. Boyd is, after all, perhaps the most high-profile and good-looking hippie on the mainstream music scene, and as such he’s largely cornered the market on artsy-vegan sex symbols for the past decade and a half. But in accompaniment there’s a depth of soul and introspection that explores existential dilemmas, accessing higher energies, purity of love and the pursuit of personal evolution.

Boyd’s melodies push the limits of his own standard design, particularly on Dance While The Devil Sleeps, a nervously creeping acoustic warning that breaks into a percussive gallop under a restrained vocal delivery. As heard here, a percussive weight fills much of The Wild Trapeze, due in part to a heavy kick drum presence and the album’s generally stripped, mostly-acoustic direction.

Courage and Control covers the slow-jam territory, more listenable and Incubus-worthy than Oil & Water but certainly skippable to all but aforementioned patchouli princesses. Brandon’s veteran songwriting insight allows him to pull tracks like A Night Without Cars from the edge of dissatisfaction with a soaring chorus, subtle Middle-Eastern lacework and powerful changes, such as the rhythmic flurry-jam before the final chorus. By the same standard, a tambourine as the central instrument doesn’t do Revenge of the Spectral Tiger any favors, though the heavy bass presence justifies a lingering attentiveness.

Obvious first single Runaway Train hits all the right spots for the Incubus demographic, including (but not limited to) flowing, layered vocals issuing metaphorical questions of whether it’s better to feed the fires of change or allow the world’s reckless momentum to run its course. The percussion drives this one as well, and it strikes me that most of these songs could easily translate into a drum circle with vocals. Take that as you will.

Last Night a Passenger, by contrast, sounds neither radio friendly or a sketch idea for Boyd’s day job. Veiled under a wall of darkly lumbering, pendular instrumentation, Brandon’s hypnotic vocal glows through and builds to a captivating peak that reminds us of precisely why this frontman has managed to hold our attention through Incubus’ mid-career artistic slump. His tonality and delivery are uniquely potent and identifiable, lending this collection a familiar, welcoming entry point.

Fans searching for a sign of style reminiscent of anything between Fungus Amongus and S.C.I.E.N.C.E. will be disappointed, but it’s foolish to expect an artist to remain at the listener’s original stylistic point of entry. Truth be told, original die-hards have little use for an introspective, soft-touch experience such as this – the album serves strong testimony that the days of Vitamin and New Skin are forever behind us, with the possible limited exception of closer All Ears Avow! The track doesn’t recall early Incubus days so much as reestablish a confidence that Boyd can still deliver the punchy, high-energy peaks most of us were first drawn to.

With any luck, one result of The Wild Trapeze will be a kick that gets Incubus out of their soft-rock rut and back to high-octane action they deliver so well. Until then, it’s a nice view from this hilltop.