Modern Guilt

Musical chameleon Beck released his latest album, "Modern Guilt," on his 38th birthday and the songs found therein display an artist far removed from the 23-year-old Los Angeles slacker who was telling us he was 'un perdedor' on "Mellow Gold," his 1994 breakthrough release. This disc finds Mr. Hansen truly exploring the heavy themes of death and personal reflection for the first time, and the results are nothing short of stellar. Middle age, it seems, has its benefits.

Beck tried this feat, the "serious record," two years ago on 2006's "The Information," but the message was pretty much lost to critics and fans, who thought the filtered-through-a-ColecoVision beats and lyrics about cellular phones were more post-apocalyptic and self-referential than anything else. He gets straight to the point this time around, with 10 concise tracks, a 34-minute runtime and not an ounce of leftover ideas to clutter the proceedings.

To the delight of fans the world over, Beck enlisted Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), the reigning critical darling of the music-production world, to man the boards on "Modern Guilt." They make an excellent team, what with their shared taste for `60s psychedelic rock, twitchy percussion and looped string samples -- not to mention their impeccable ear for catchy riffs. The surf-rock bass line that serves as the backbone for "Gamma Ray" makes it the closest approximation to a pop song Beck has written in years.

Perhaps tired of hearing that his last two records were trying too hard to be "Odelay 2.0," Beck has dialed back his use of left-field audio samples and bits of obscure and forgotten songs from decades past, choosing instead to interpret those influences and recreate them as fairly straightforward rock tunes. People seem to forget that, if you ignore the space-cowboy production flourishes that saturate every last inch of Beck's late-`90s output, he was -- and still is -- one of the most prolific singer-songwriters of the last 25 years.

Of course, it wouldn't be a true Beck album if he didn't make room in his lyrics for a full notebook's worth of wacky one-liners and vaguely interpretable philosophical musings. The churning "Soul of a Man" finds our hero spitting out non sequiturs as if he made them up a few seconds before walking into the recording booth. "Beat my bones against the wall/Put a bank note on your bond/Gris-gris and a goldenrod/Deep down in a hollow log," goes one verse, the words apparently chosen for no reason other than to meet the song's syllabic needs.

"Chemtrails," the slow and dreamy lead single, addresses the urban legend that the vapor trails from commercial airliners contain chemicals that, once they fall to Earth and are inhaled by an unaware populace, allow the government to control us. (Sample lyric: "You and me hit by a test of white evil/Watching the jet planes go by") Now, that may just be the Scientology talking, but the fact remains that "Chemtrails" is one of the most beautifully composed Beck ballads in recent memory.

Prior to the release of "Modern Guilt," there was a lot of excited chatter over the news that soul singer Cat Power (Chan Marshall) would be making a cameo appearance on two of the album's tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls," but her contributions are so incidental (and not to mention barely audible) that I think mentioning them four-fifths of the way through my review will suffice.

The most notable aspect of "Modern Guilt," in my opinion, is that it is the first Beck album since 1999's "Midnite Vultures" to not have a single clunker on it. Perhaps they were crafted that way, to get in and out in less than four minutes each and leave you wanting more. And there's no guilt in that, modern or otherwise.

I found this album a far better listen than anything I've heard previously by Beck. Melodic, but in a Beckish way, this album takes you along a distinctive trip without too much jarring.

This is one of those albums that grows on you after each listen. There are so many things happening underneath, sounds that you don't hear at the first listens. The songs seem really simple and straightforward, but it's just a first impression, be assured. Beck is back with an excellent album, and songs like Youthless, Chemtrails or Gamma Ray are real gems. You can vote your favorite songs off this record at the following page: votesongs.blogspot.com/2008/08/beck-modern-guilt.html

A throwback to the days of vinyl records, Beck and producer Danger Mouse squeeze many interesting ideas into approximately 40 minutes worth of music. There's nothing really new musically added to Beck's catalog here. It could have been part of a double album with Mutations. That idea alone makes it a valuable addition to a Beck collection.

The pairing of Americana-junk maestro Beck and radical producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse seems at first glance so obvious, so undeniably right, that it's hard to believe Beck didn't enlist the mash-up auteur sooner. One is a musician whose defined his career with taking genres apart and splicing them back together with the detritus of culture to create an amalgam that has made for a career as wildly disparate and creative as it is uneven, while the other is a visionary producer who gave remixers everywhere a new lease on life. While Modern Guilt isn't exactly the masterpiece fans might've hoped for, it is one of Beck's most tightly focused records in years and one that forebodes well for the duo's partnership.

Modern Guilt is, at first listen, neither as immediately accessible as 2005's Guero or as sprawling and erratic as 2006's The Information. Beck's more expansive urges have been reined in by Danger Mouse's production, and the result is a concise record that spares no seconds in pointless instrumentation or unnecessary filler. Lyrically and at times musically the album recalls Sea Change's morose depression, focusing on themes of war, suicide, confusion, and essentially a good number of the world's problems. Beck's lyrics have always been a little hard to interpret, but while the songs here are clearly not the most optimistic in Beck's catalog, they're nowhere near the self-flagellating grief of Sea Change.

The first half of the record is fantastic, a series of some of the best, most incisive songs Beck has put down. "Orphans" starts off softly with a garage drumbeat and an acoustic guitar strumming along as Beck questions "how can I make new again what rusts every time?" Following song "Gamma Ray" is just as sparse but turns out to be the poppiest song Beck has recorded since Guero's "Girl," a chugging surf-rock guitar propelling a simple yet effective chorus. "Chemtrails," the longest song on the record at 4:38, is anchored by a cascading drum rhythm and some of the trippiest vocals on the album. Strangely enough, it reminds me of something would fit right at home on The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi record.

The title track and "Youthless" continue the album's strong run, the former a folksy shuffle about the generally bad direction the world is going in spiced up with a few electronic bleeps and a string part, while the latter is an up-tempo, bass-driven jam that is effectively catchy in its skimpy simplicity.

The second half tends to slow down as some of the momentum drops off, but Beck still has a few tricks up his sleeve: namely, the immediately memorable junk-drum and wailing synths on the chorus of "Walls" and the thumping, Western-outlaw vibe of "Soul Of A Man" with its squealing guitar lighting up the track.

"Replica," however, trips itself up with an out-of-place beat that jitters and jives to the point of exasperation and never really seems to develop beyond its beginnings, while "Profanity Prayers," mires itself in a boring driving guitar rhythm before redeeming itself with a far more interesting outro. Closer "Volcano" is a slow tale in the mold of "Emergency Exit" from Guero, built on top of a ticking drum machine and an anti-climatic ending that ends Modern Guilt on a melancholic, weak note.


Beck has never been one to be caught empty-handed of fresh ideas, and Modern Guilt proves that his songwriting abilities are still in sharp form. Danger Mouse's varied and consistently accomplished production makes for an album that is nearly uniformly good while ensuring that Beck's excesses were funneled into something constructive. Timely and more layered than much of what Beck has recorded in the past few years, Modern Guilt is a promising indication of a great partnership in the making.