sit back and watch him change

By John Charles Reedburg

For a musical chameleon who has tackled every genre from bluegrass to rap, coming up with a new sound for Beck’s umpteenth album was going to be tricky.

Teaming up with Gnarls Barkley’s DANGER MOUSE (aka Brian Burton), Modern Guilt is an album that shows a more mature BECK HANSEN who sings about climate change and refugees as opposed to jack-asses and soul suckin’ jerks. When Beck first burst on to the scene with his 1994 debut Mellow Gold, he instantly became a cult hero.

Through mixing his folk music roots with surreal hip-hop lyricism, he showed himself to be a true original. Then with the triumph that was his 1996 follow-up Odelay, he proved he was more than a one-hit wonder. But the twenty-first century has seen Beck become a harmless hipster whose albums are predictably innovative yet rarely brilliant. Other than his 2002 acoustic gem, Sea Change, it seemed that the man who once wrote a song called ‘Satan Gave Me a Taco’ had simply run out of ideas.

Modern Guilt runs at just over 30 minutes, a product of tight-as-a-drum production and songwriting. The first track, ‘Orphans’, begins with pounding programmed drums until it fades into a subtle acoustic riff; it’s clear immediately that for the first time in years, Beck has been able to seamlessly meld his influences into a brand new sound. It’s all here: the hip-hop rhythms, the poignant lyricism, the driving riffs fused with an apparent penchant for Sixties pop. It’s Beck, alright, but not as we’ve ever heard him before.

While there’s really very little on the album you could call ‘classic Beck’, this doesn’t detract from the quality and variety of the material. The opening three tracks – Orphans, Gamma Ray and Chemtrails – offer completely different vibes and styles …

“Chemtrails” is a bleak and beautiful song that could have easily been a Pink Floyd off-cut; “Gamma Ray” is the most danceable ditty about global warming you’ll hear all year.

When the title track rolls around, with it’s back-to-basics composition, those unaware of Hansen’s previous works may think Beck is the name of a retro, four-piece band. Here the strength of “Modern Guilt” shows itself, as Beck and Burton’s shared love of all things retro has been channeled into the production. The material is allowed to speak for itself with no need for over embellishment.

DH gives this one seven out of 10.

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