Beck: Modern Guilt (Interscope)
7/10


When news hit that Danger Mouse would be involved in Beck's latest offering, Modern Guilt, I got pretty excited. Our favorite 'Loser' has been known to make extremely great music (groundbreaking and chart-busting) as a collaborator (O Delay!), as well as solidifying his own reputation as a master of melodic-funk-party-pop. However, Modern Guilt basically demonstrates that the two musicians are huge fans of Caribou, which is not a bad thing.

Modern Guilt certainly has charm, and a few diamond moments. Songs like "Orphans" (featuring Cat Power)," the beach-bop of "Gamma Ray" and the sugary, psychedelia of "Chemtrails" are all solid, but Chan Marshall is allowed very little movement in the song while the acoustic guitar-meets-Beach Boys vocal line is an obvious call-out for The Milk of Human Kindness and Andorra cops to come knocking. The line, "Come on little gamma ray/standing in a hurricane," should unleash exactly that, but the vocals never quite match the musical intensity that I was hoping for. There's a healthy nod to Dan Snaith all over these tracks, and they are by far my faves, but I would have liked to hear more 'Beck' in them.

"Soul of Man" and "Profanity Prayers" offer searing guitars that add playfulness and spark to the end of the disc, the latter containing a sample of what sounds like a helium tank inflating a balloon over a simple chugging drum beat. The reverberated steel guitar drops in and adds pounds of glitter to his pipes. This is the kind of wackiness and intuitive thinking that should have dominated the entire album, and why I always look forward to Beck's records.

The sum parts of electronic samples, psychedelic wizardry and Danger Mouse's rhythmic influence work well, but the result is almost too safe when you consider that there are two stellar musicians here; well-known for trailblazing their own paths.



- Scott McDonald