Since forming in the early Nineties, Incubus have released eight albums, and their sound has changed a lot from record to record. Brandon Boyd and Co. began as a quasi-nu-metal act, then pivoted to funky alt-metal and ultimately grew into a tuneful alternative rock act. They have a fascinating discography to comb through, and Louder Sound recently had Boyd go through his entire Incubus catalog and rank all of their albums from worst to best.
For the bottom of his band's barrel, he selected their 1995 debut, Fungus Amongus, which notably sounds vastly different from the music Incubus would make going forward.
"This is a weird one, it doesn't feel like a studio album," Boyd said of Fungus. "It was barely mixed and recorded. S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was the first time we had a recording budget, and so this for all intents and purposes is a record... but it's just the first songs that we ever wrote. If we are including Fungus Amongus that would be my least favorite, but I'd give it a good, solid four stars [out of 10]."
As for the best, Boyd went with his band's best-selling album, their 2001 opus, Morning View.
"This whole exercise has been an exercise in retrospect, and because I, and we as a band, stuck to our guns, we had a feeling this is what we needed to do," Boyd said of Morning View. "Some people will lick their thumb and stick it in the air and see which way the wind is blowing, but personally I always admired the bands, the songwriters, the film makers, the painters who do that to see which way not to go. With greater risk there is greater chance of reward.
"I say all that, but it's one of our most successful records to date. I put this top because historically when we finish a record, I listen to it for a month and then put it away. Morning View I put on and I am almost entirely okay with it. I have the least critique in it. I've been listening to it because the sets we've been playing recently have been quite heavy on the material since it's over 20 years old, and I am quite proud of the record.
"Listening back to it recently, I find it interesting to see where I put my voice and how I came up with some of those ideas. It's still fascinating to me. I think that we did something pretty good for a bunch of guys who were 24 to 25 years old, there's some real sophistication on it. Well done, younger guys! I can't give any of our albums a 10, but I'll give it a 9.2."
