The album has its singular moments as well. The lead guitar riff on “Soul of a Man” stands out, and the 60’s throwback acid-drop go-go rhythms from “Gamma Ray” is Top 40 material. I had the pleasure of seeing many of the songs on Modern Guilt performed live a few weeks ago in Austin, Texas, and “Chemtrails” shined with epic quality, cementing itself as my favorite song on the album. The painful foreshadowing of the opening vocal harmonies and trippy bass plucks give way to the song’s echoing vocal climax, and the final bell-toll and guitar freak-out proved this to be Beck’s greatest track in years.
Odelay will forever remain one of the few albums (by any artist) to ever receive the tremendous praise that it did, and few works even stand the grounds worthy of challenging it, but that doesn’t mean Modern Guilt isn’t worth consideration as a near second. Beck is 38 now, and this new batch of songs are clear foils, yet very respectful to the music he produced twelve years ago.
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