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Modern Guilt is a hot thing of indefinite course.
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FilterThough he has never had just one sonic home, and Modern Guilt is no exception to this rule, Beck is somehow more aware while puffing out his waves of broken poetry as opposed to the casual seed-spitting he has been known to turn to. [Summer 2008, p.91]
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Burton makes the ultimate endgame sound like a party you'd still want to be invited to--one that even Beck might enjoy, despite himself.
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Here, they [Beck and Danger Mouse] deliver enough substance and style to make Modern Guilt an effective dosage of 21st century paranoia.
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Beck, at last, is back.
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Paste MagazineAll this adds up to Beck’s darkest record to date, one that captures the uncertainty of 2008 as well as "Mellow Gold" distilled apathy in 1994.
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So Beck is finally fun again, and you suspect the person most surprised by how well Modern Guilt turned out is the guy who made it.
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Nothing makes as quick of an impact as 'Crazy,' but give the tunes time and you'll find they stick around.
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Modern Guilt takes that album's insecurity in the face of technology running away with us, to a tightly-written 10 songs that in part seem to focus on what, precisely, we have done to the world; and how on earth are we meant to get back in touch with it?
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Beck has shown an affinity for retro-leaning styles on his previous records, too, but he's never found a sound quite as consistent or compelling as the one Danger Mouse dials in here.
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Taken as a whole, the album's first five songs stand among Beck's strongest work.
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2008 requires more focus and more grace. Modern Guilt delivers both.
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With 10 songs clocking in at just 33 minutes, Modern Guilt feels fleeting, even temporal, and that seems to be the point. It's destined to be an artifact of an age that's rocketing, Beck suspects, toward oblivion.
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There isn’t anything outlandishly overdone on this album as Beck offers a more stripped down approach. These are obvious efforts to return to a more cohesive, solid form and with a steady dose of subtle harmonies, crafty melodies and hooks, interesting instrumentation and oh yeah, two songs that feature Cat Power, Beck doesn’t disappoint.
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MojoSo does the pairing work? The answer, from the first, strutting beats of Modern Guilt's opener, 'Orphans,' is a gleaming Yes. [Aug 2008, p.104]
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Q MagazineThe slacker boy wonder has grown up to be a man on a new mission. [Aug 2008, p.134]
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Under The RadarModern Guilt adds Danger Mouse and Cat Power to Beck's roster of collaborators, with spectacular results. [Fall 2008, p.79]
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The concept of a modern type of guilt is probably supposed to imply the effortlessly achievable comfort and depressed humility with which much of the album is sung. Perhaps ironically, the best way to enjoy Modern Guilt is with blinders on to this sort of temporal perspective.
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"Odelay" this surely isn't, but Beck it surely is--a chameleon who changes colors just enough to keep himself interested.
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Modern Guilt is “Wall-E” for anyone who prefers rock 'n' roll to kids' movies.
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It sits alone in his cannon as being slightly uncomfortable but in turn is a brilliantly concise work (it runs to a little over 30 minutes).
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Though Modern Guilt is more direct and consistent than his last two scattershot LPs, it also finds the disillusioned L.A. hippie struggling to balance his deathly outlook with his more crowd-pleasing inclinations.
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Recently, Beck too often sounds like he's playing with his toys and not intent on making actual music, but the new album's brief 10 tracks prove that he's almost always more interesting when he's not having fun.
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In a scant 30-plus minutes, Modern Guilt modestly proves that it's still restlessness, both artistic and personal, that drives the only living boy in Los Angeles.
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Produced by hip-hop head case Danger Mouse, who is half of Gnarls Barkley, Modern Guilt mixes ancient rock--mainly the incense-and-peppermints-flavored ’60s psychedelia of Revolver-era Beatles, the Zombies and Pink Floyd--with the woozy, abstract beats Danger Mouse manages to turn into freaked-out fun.
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While not the most creative thing he’s produced, it feels naturally cohesive and stands as an interesting piece on its own.
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Modern Guilt doesn’t quite make it to that flashpoint, but it certainly points the way to a musical future brighter than the endless, mirrored hall of 'Devils Haircut' rewrites that songs like 'E-Pro' suggested was coming. And that is a sea change worth waiting for.
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At just more than 33 minutes, Modern Guilt is compacted for impact and delivers.
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This unpretentious attitude permeates the album’s writing and terse production whose results are self-evident: it lacks the unique resonating timbres one is accustomed to with Beck.
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It's hard to deny the fresh, eclectic sounds of Walls or the sheer beauty in the closing sounds of Volcano, but overall, if this is any indication, Danger Mouse's productions are losing their novelty, and Beck remains at an uneven point in his career.
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Modern Guilt feels like a vanity project: there is no attempt to reach out, none of the classic pop singles Beck has been revered for, just 10 inward-looking, unlovable tracks.
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Everything moves in linear fashion backwards, with only Danger Mouse’s bold battering saving Beck from a horrifying relapse into dreary Sea Change melancholia.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 86 out of 98
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Mixed: 10 out of 98
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Negative: 2 out of 98
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Jun 15, 2019
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Nov 1, 2011
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thehamsterJan 18, 2009