Single Slam – Nimble Bastard by Incubus (8)

The latest blast from the past single of the week comes from Incubus and is called Nimble Bastard. The new track is taken from their soon to be released album, simply called 8. Why, you ask? Well it will be their 8th studio album so is about as unimaginative a title as you can come up with. 8 is due to be released on April the 21st via Island Records. It will be the first full length studio album since If Not Now, When? was released in 2011. The Californian rockers have released an EP since then, Trust Fall, and have toured extensively with the likes of Deftones and Death From Above so have been very active.

While a lot of their songs are recognisable to me, I never really got too heavily in to Incubus. While they experimented a lot on their music, their most famous songs didn’t really connect with me. I find songs like Megalomaniac, Drive and Wish You Were Here to be a little too grunge for my liking. Recognisably good songs, just not really my thing.

With rumours of the new track, Nimble Bastard, being rocked up a bit, I’m looking forward to hearing it though. I mean, a band that are still active after 26 years must be worth another go right?

Nimble Bastard is 3 minutes and 40 seconds long. It starts off with softly sung vocals from Brandon Boyd. They are sung over a neat little bass line and loosely, slapped riff. An up tempo drum beat kicks in and the vocals speed up along with it. The song still has that raw, under produced grunge feel to it but it does move along at a nice pace. It has a really good rhythm to it and has an exceptionally catchy chorus as well. There is a pretty neat instrumental part in the song too which leads back into softer sung lyrics. That leads back into the great chorus again but with bigger, crashing drums this time before heading back into the chorus proper.

Guitarist Mike Einziger told KROQ – “This song actually came very late in the process of writing new music for our new album that we have coming out very soon. We’re just about done actually and it just kind of happened in the studio and we were messing around with this musical idea and the next thing we know we had a song. Brandon wrote the lyrics and it’s kind of a narrative about someone who overcomes the harshest of circumstances and always ends up landing on their feet. It’s a really fun and energetic song.”

Nimble Bastard is a good track. It has a great tempo and rhythm to it and a really good chorus. The verses are really short so the chorus makes up most of the song which may help as well. Brandon Boyd has a great singing voice. All in all, it is just a very decent rock song and well worth checking out.

Check out the new song for yourself here.  Nimble Bastard is available on all the normal streaming sites now such as Apple Music, Napster and Spotify. Check out Incubus on Twitter, Facebook and their own website to keep up to date with future releases and all other information.