8

Anyone hoping that the 11th-hour recruitment of Skrillex as co-producer would encourage Incubus to add vertiginous drops and bowel-shaking sub-bass to their eighth album will be disappointed. Despite that, they remain as dismissive of rock’s traditional boundaries as ever, roaming from New Wave pop (“Familiar Faces”) to dark-hearted electro-blues (“Loneliest”) and a dub/lounge-jazz mash-up (“Make No Sound in the Forest”). The Californians have never undervalued short, sharp thrills though; the riff-laden “Nimble Bastard” is exhilarating and incisive.