—————————————————— Beck: Modern Guilt | Music | Houston | Houston Press | The Leading Independent News Source in Houston, Texas

Beck: Modern Guilt

Beck has made a much-lauded career by camouflaging his ramshackle ways inside the scenery provided by his producers. Still, Modern Guilt, his tenth album, feels like as much a Danger Mouse album as a Beck release. Danger Mouse, the whiz behind Gnarls Barkley's maniacally celebrated 2006 smash "Crazy," is the perfect beatsmith/producer for Beck's increasingly cryptic and overwhelmed-by-society lyrics (it's been a long time since Mr. Hansen got "crazy with the Cheese Whiz"). It's Beck's least scattered album, meaning fewer non sequiturs, both lyrically and musically. "Orphans" opens the record with a staccato breakbeat that yields to some clean folksy guitar before coming back to give some street cred to a song that wanders through inner space. The next track, "Gamma Ray," with its great mod-boogie simplicity, flat out sounds like Gnarls Barkley. On "Chemtrails," Beck dons a mellow falsetto that puts him beautifully in the middle of Brian Wilson's range, singing what could be a Wilson tune were it not for the massive, rolling drums that Joey Waronker pounds underneath. There's a decidedly lo-fi vibe to Danger Mouse's handiwork, which brushes everything from dark trip-hop to dusty jungle to a tin-can two-step that's uniquely his. The album was recorded at Beck's house in Silverlake, so it exudes simple, literally homemade lo-fi goodness (think 2005's Guero) with, courtesy of Danger Mouse, some serious beats.

KEEP THE HOUSTON PRESS FREE... Since we started the Houston Press, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Houston, and we'd like to keep it that way. With local media under siege, it's more important than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" program, allowing us to keep offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food and culture with no paywalls.
Michael Coyle