Beck - Modern Guilt
DGC/Universal
By Andrew P Street
Think back to when you first heard ‘Loser': pretty freakin' cute,
wasn't it? And its parent album Mellow Gold had all those songs like
‘Truckdrivin' Neighbours Downstairs' that suggested an artist who had a
pretty good line in deadpan irony. And then there were all those great
videos, and the synchronised marionettes when he played at the V
Festival: hey, Beck likes a joke, right?
Well, he's not laughing anymore.
That
playful sense of humour - which peaked with the whole straightfaced
disco partay of 1999's Midnite Vultures - has vanished. In some ways,
the economical arrangements (and relatively short length) of Modern
Guilt seems a reaction to the sprawling, overlush textures of 2006's
The Information, but the album that it most resembles is 1998's
transitional neither-fish-nor-flesh Mutations, in mood if not sound.
And, despite the perky beats and boppy melodies, that mood is "despair".
"Some
days are worse than you can imagine" Mr Hansen sighs on ‘Walls', while
the catchy-as-fuck single ‘Gamma Ray' might start off like a lost B-52s
track but the early reference to "ice caps melting down" signals that
the so-named particles are about to leach through the depleted ozone
layer and give you cancer.
Elsewhere the hypnotic ‘Chemtrails' is the
song that you've fruitlessly hoped to find on every Air album since
Moon Safari while ‘Modern Guilt' bops along like a skeletal Blur demo,
finding a new midpoint between "jaunty" and "melancholy". In fact, the
title track is a neat microcosm for the album: Beck's voice has never
sounded more resigned and defeated, even as Danger Mouse's beats and
production take his music in enticing new directions.
It's superb
whichever way you look at it, but if you're looking for the perfect
record to dance to as we teeter on the precipice of global disaster,
Modern Guilt is definitely the disc for you.