E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rock in a hard place Incubus prepare to face a tight concert market BY SEAN RICHARDSON
	More on this topic Wake-up calls: Incubus deliver their Morning View. By Sean Richardson.

Incubus drummer José Pasillas is on the phone from Atlantic City, where the LA alterna-rockers are about to start a three-month North American tour that makes two stops in New England this weekend. The cancellation of Lollapalooza 2004 has just been announced, and that news hits Pasillas close to home. On last year’s edition of Perry Farrell’s traveling circus, Incubus joined Jane’s Addiction and Audioslave at the top of the bill. This year, the band realize that despite their reputation as one of the most energetic and spontaneous live acts around, the soft concert market means they’re in for a fight.

"When Lollapalooza first came out, it was the most amazing, eclectic festival," Pasillas raves. "I went to those and saw all my favorite bands. When we got asked to do it, we were thrilled. It had an awesome line-up, but things are really difficult today. Ticket sales are low across the board. We’re lucky we didn’t have to cancel our tour. We’ll just try our best. We’ll play our shows and have a great time. If it’s half full, then a half-full venue will have fun."

The current Incubus release, A Crow Left of the Murder . . . (Epic), is their fourth proper album and second in a row to hit the Billboard Top 10. The disc has already spawned two smash hits, the rocker "Megalomaniac" and the ballad "Talk Shows on Mute." The first is a howling diatribe that seems to take aim at President Bush. "If I met you in a scissorfight/I’d cut off both your wings on principle alone," frontman Brandon Boyd sings, keeping self-righteousness at bay with his metaphorical silliness. The second is quieter but just as vehement in its distaste for the Orwellian aspects of contemporary America: "Come one, come all/Into 1984/Yeah, 3-2-1/Lights, camera, transaction." Both tracks have provocative videos by director Floria Sigismondi, a star ever since bursting onto the scene in 1996 with Marilyn Manson’s "The Beautiful People."

Pasillas maintains that both the songs and the videos from Crow are driven more by artistic concerns than by political ones. "When Floria heard ‘Megalomaniac,’ the first thing she thought of was politics, and this whole Fascist thing came up. When she came to us with the idea, we were like, ‘Cool, run with it. As long as it makes sense and it’s a beautiful piece, we’re supportive of it.’ The whole twist, ‘Well, you guys are a political band now. What are you trying to say?’ We’re like, ‘Anything you can get out of it.’ If it makes someone think, then we’re doing our job."

Incubus shook things up a little during the making of Crow. It’s their first album with bassist Ben Kenney (the Roots), the first with producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam), and the first to be recorded on the East Coast. "Ben has been with us for a little over a year now," Pasillas points out. "He’s a really talented player. The rest of us have been a band for 13 years, so you kind of have tunnel vision after a while. You know how everyone plays, which is awesome, especially for a band who like to improvise. But the new blood really inspired us. Bringing Brendan into the mix, it was the first time we had a producer go through each song with us and really work on them. It was a cool experience."

For all their success on radio, Incubus are no one-dimensional singles band. On the hour-long Crow, they geek out in a way that has more in common with the Mars Volta than with Linkin Park. Guitar hero Michael Einziger gets his rocks off on "Sick Sad Little World," a six-minute psychedelic blowout that balances aggressive beats with unpredictable jams. "A Crow Left of the Murder" and "Pistola" keep things speedy and sophisticated on a disc that makes more room for fast tempos than did its predecessor, Morning View.

Instrumental fireworks aside, these are the same guys who went Top 10 in 2001 with the introspective "Drive," and they haven’t forgotten how to write hooks. "Agoraphobia" and "Here in My Room" cater to their tender side and sound like hits in waiting. Boyd the ladies’ man is alive and well on "Southern Girl," a steamy slow jam that wears its heart on its sleeve: "You’re all I ever wanted/Southern girl, could you want me?" The outrage of "Megalomaniac" resurfaces on "Leech," which ends the album with a guitar stampede. Sensitive enough for the girls and rowdy enough for the boys — it’s as if Incubus were on a crusade to give arena rock a good name.

Incubus perform this Friday, July 2, at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence; call (401) 331-0700. On Saturday, July 3, they’re at the Centrum in Worcester; call (508) 755-6800.