I’m a Beck fanatic. I’ve known about this album for a while, read interviews, articles, and scraps of napkins, anything. Did it live up to my expectations? Oh, yes.
Following his pattern of rock album, mellow album, Modern Guilt is the rock album follow up to 2006’s The Information. The pattern is the only predictable thing about Beck. As any fan could tell you, no two albums are the same. There might be elements of each album blended together, but no two are the same.
In the case of Modern Guilt he has taken every 1960’s era guitar tune and blended it with lyrics about awareness of present times. Despair goes well with a solid drumbeat. Dangermouse, as producer, brings some of the magic from his work with the Black Keys and uses beats where appropriate.
Like Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Beck really stripped out all the excess samples, bells, whistles and whatnot to create a solid 10 song album. First single ‘Gamma Ray’ is a guitar and drum tune talking about global awareness. ‘Chemtrails’ is another tune about pollution in the world. ‘Modern Guilt’ is a realization that the world is spinning out of control, and maybe we’re all to blame for the state of things.
‘Orphans’ and ‘Youthless’ are both funky, psychedelic tracks about how material things seem to be ruining our lives. Notice a pattern? In his subtle way, Beck is trying to make a statement about the world today, and can you blame him? ‘Walls’ sounds like a paranoia filled nightmare, and ‘Replica’ breaks out with some Crystal Method style drumbeats. ‘Soul of a Man’, ‘Profanity Prayers’ and ‘Volcano’ do well to close out an album of fresh material. These are some of his best lyrics that should keep you occupied for the rest of summer.
