Incubus: Make Yourself Review - 20th Anniversary

Make Yourself turned twenty years old a couple of weeks ago. TWENTY YEARS! This masterpiece from Incubus was released on October 26, 1999 and remains one of my favorite albums of all time and is my top choice from the band’s catalog – which I find hard to say given their body of work. When Morning View came out nearly two years later, there was a period where I don’t think I listened to anything else for nearly a month. But, I digress.

I’ll never forget when I first saw the video to Drive. I’d just moved up from Atlanta and had the cable T.V. hooked up in my Metro Detroit apartment. There was a channel called MTV-X. They played videos from cool bands of the time like Rage Against The Machine, Hoobastank, Nickelback (don’t even – Leader Of Men is a killer track), Sevendust and Incubus. I had heard the track and liked it very much but didn’t go too much further into the band. After watching that video I went and bought the Incubus CD that day. Here’s what happened next:

If we shorthand it, I obsessed over the record, became a huge Incubus fan, got my hands on Fungus Amongus and S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and felt like I was hearing the next great band. (I wasn’t wrong) But in between all of that was my exploration of one of the albums that set up the next decade of music to come. Seemed like for the next five plus years I heard the unmistakable sound of Mesa Boogie amps and DJ scratching everywhere I went.

Another thing seemed to happen to me as well. When Faith No More broke up after their Album of the Year, record, I felt like there was no way a singer would come along and capture my attention the way Mike Patton did. But there I was listening to a song like Pardon Me or When It Comes and was hit with those quick words combined with a voice that reminded me of Patton’s vocal tone and power. A good reference is on When It Comes and Brandon Boyd flows out of those verses into that double tracked pre-chorus/chorus. It’s a special moment in the song and it’s not the easiest thing to pull off and reach those Patton plateaus. The thing is.. he has those special moments throughout the entire album. He seemed to create these magical moments all the while placing his own style and nuances on the track – thus creating a Brandon Boyd style. This style has been tried more than once since by other bands but the dude has it on lock.

Guitarist Mike Einziger brilliantly combined that Mesa crunch with some of the most trippy-guitar-riff-on-a-mainstream-record to come along since, I don’t know – Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, maybe? Songs like Nowhere Fast and Stellar are some of my favorite Einziger tracks. His timely placed string bends and funky chord progressions are not child’s play. There’s some serious songwriting going on here.

Let’s talk rhythm section. What happens when you mix melodic bass guitars with technical drums and throw in some alternate time signatures for dessert? You get the title track, Make Yourself, that’s what. I absolutely love the way these two guys play off each other on the song and album. Sometimes it’s the omission that breathes life into the track. Example: On the intro of Clean there is the build up and drummer Jose Pasillas hits the crash without bassist Dirk Lance hitting the seemingly accompanied note on the bass guitar. It’s little subtleties like this that make for a great payoff when the songs goes into the first verse. Then, you get a groove where Lance is almost following along with Pasillas on the hi-hat instead of the kick drum. Brill.

When is your D.J. so damn good he gets his own track on the album? This good: Battlestar Scralatchtica. This jazz influenced track showcases DJ Kilmore on the wheels as the band lays down a funky rhythm for Kilmore to lay his quick moving hands over. Together they provided a lethal combination.

There simply isn’t a song on this record that I dislike. Each song has its own unique personality. I mentioned the clever songwriting both lyrically and musically but there’s more. Straightforward songs like one of their biggest hits ever, Drive, gives the listener a taste of nearly everything the album has to offer. Great songwriting, stellar (I know) vocal harmonies, a mixture of acoustic and dirty guitars, precise drums, melodic bass lines and DJ-based transitions. This clearly was a recipe for success for the band. Another song I cannot end this article without mentioning is I Miss You. Of all the songs on this album, this is the one I probably sing along with the most. No tricks here, outside of the 3/4 time signature. This is just a great love song that brings the listener into Boyd’s descriptions of everything he misses about the subject of the song. Hell – I think I’ll cue this one up next. I’ll spare you the butcher job I’ll do to it, though.

It’s almost hard to believe it’s been twenty years since the release of Make Yourself. Like many people, I have so many memories that are and always will be attached to this record. For me, it felt like the start of a new chapter in my life moving back to Michigan from Hotlanta. I’m just glad this album was part of the soundtrack that filled the speakers during that time. I’m sure you have yours and I hope you were able to relive some of those they way I did, going back re-listening to this album for like the millionth time.

SoundVapors

Incubus – Make Yourself – 20th Anniversary