Okay. I was on vacation last week so, forgive me for not getting to this before now.
Actually, that’s not entirely honest. I was on vacation but, the truth is I’ve not seriously listened to a Beck release in years. I did check out The Information last year but it barely made my play list.

“What’s changed,” you ask?

I was hipped to this record by a friend who shared my disappointment in the new My Morning Jacket album, ‘Evil Urges’. Not as a consolation for that disappointment but, peripherally to the conversation, he noted that he was rocking this and that it was great, and yadda, yadda, yadda. All this I’ve heard before. However, feeling a little open minded and adventurous (I credit the time away from work for easing my cynicism,)  I committed to checking out Modern Guilt.

It struck me as a little unfair to review this album without proper context. After all, Beck has been releasing albums for nearly 15 years and I have long maintained that my favorite is 1994’s One Foot In The Grave– a work that is not typical of his catalog. And then there’s the fact that I saw him in concert in 2005, knew very few of the songs performed and yet, I had a great time. So, over the past week, I have enveloped myself in the music of Mr. Beck Hansen.

I’ve found myself nostalgic for the psychedelic garage sounds of Mellow Gold and the harder, yet more accessible crunch of ‘Odelay’. I relished the avant-garde muscle of ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ (which has been possibly the most frequently played of Beck’s albums in my life because it’s the only one that I own on vinyl!) I discovered beautiful songs on Mutations and Sea Change (which quickly became my favorite album of the marathon.) And found myself staring at the new album, Modern Guilt, with feelings of inevitability and curiosity propelling me to listen.

I put it on last night as I rode the train and found myself sucked in to the drum beats and the lyrics. Here is a songwriter who once mixed the lines, “You can’t write if you can’t relate,” and, “drive-by body pierce” into the same song with no apology. He has turned in an album the compels me to listen to his lyrics- to hang on them even- and allow myself to be blown away by the sincere questioning of the world around. War, environmental collapse, isolation, conspiracy; it’s all here.

I haven’t mentioned yet that it’s co-produced by Beck and and one of today’s hottest producers, Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz, The Grey Album.) Their collaboration is inspired and results in a Beck record that sounds like no other of his previous releases. The album is almost strikingly musical; sounding more as if performed by a live band than if it were spliced together from a sample library and a record collection. The songs benefit from snapping snares; crisp, tonal, bass and reverb drenched guitars. “Chemtrails”, the first single, opens with a vocal passage that sounds like something from Pet Sounds before the chorus hits and turns into a psych-pop masterpiece with an hypnotic hook.

The piano-driven shuffle of the title track has a little “Tainted Love”-esque synth thrown in for kicks before soaring as Beck wordlessly sings through the second half of the cut. This, contrasts with “Youthless” which, if released in an extended mix, should be what the kids are dancing to in the clubs. I’d dance to it. And, for those of you who don’t know me, that’s saying something.

My favorite cut, by far, is “Volcano”. It closes the album with a slow, contemplative, walk down a dark, rain soaked, street; looking for direction and dodging ghosts. “I’m tired of people who only want to be free but I still want to please you,” he sings…

Now, none of these songs are especially long (“Chemtrails” is the longest at 4:40)  and that serves them all well. They focus on sharp lyrics and great hooks (“Walls” is a shockingly blunt commentary on the powers that be backed with a great beat that clocks in under 2:30.) In fact, the entire album is less than 35 minutes long. That doesn’t mean that it’s less than it could be. On the contrary, a tragically high percentage of artists can’t sustain a single song with this degree of quality- much less an entire album. (I feel compelled to note that at least one song isn’t all that hot. “Replica” is all beat, no body.)

Beck has really stepped up to surpass what I loved about Sea Change and, at long last, I feel I can forgive him for not making another One Foot In The Grave. He has given me a new favorite Beck album (so far) and one of my favorite releases of 2008.

So far.