Brandon Boyd - The WildTrapeze

Wed 7th Jul, 2010 in Music Reviews

Forget publishing two books, launching your own Los Angeles art exhibit and making up 1/5th of alternative rock band Incubus – whose album sales exceed 18 million worldwide. Brandon Boyd has brought an anticipated solo debut album, The Wild Trapeze, to the table. And while it’s anything but your booty shaking, one-hit wonder loving pop bandwagon music that our Western culture so often praises, this impressive milestone should be judged on its own individual excellence.

Music is either written well or badly. And in any case, Trapeze proves the latter is simply impossible for Boyd; whether he be flying solo or collaborating with his hotshot band of brothers who he has made unparalleled music with for the last 19 years.

In this spotlight performance, Boyd takes the helm of everything music. He penned the twelve tracks in signature poetic style, laid down all the vocals, composed the melodies and audaciously picked up 98% of instruments. Although he’s no virtuoso, he is still an artist in true form vastly improving his art across an assortment of genres and musical equipment.

The Clean and New Skin djembe playing days have evolved into infectious drum patterns heard in Dance While The Devil Sleeps. Pantomime bar-chords and Oil and Water guitar arrangements have both given birth to the rebellious, punchy, handclap accompanied guitar line in All Ears Avow! – an energetic, upbeat, attention demanding track that has the raddest, and at times Prince influenced, vocals. Suffice to say, Boyd is no shredding guru like band mate Mike Einziger, but he goes alright in acoustic medium as you would expect a non-lead guitarist to do and that’s okay.

In a similar manner to the past two Incubus albums, Boyd’s lyrical content in Trapeze has slowly retreated from passionate love cries in favour of an alarmist direction which highlights the infinite scores of problems plaguing our sick, sad screwed up world.

At the end of a promising Trapeze listen, it’s apparent that Boyd’s gifted vocals and lyrics are the focus of the album; which is what one could naturally expect from a lead singer/songwriter. In spite of this, Boyd embarking on a solo journey to create “music for music’s sake” has instigated the unravelling of a mature and distinctive sound separate to Incubus.