AMG Review of Monuments & Melodies

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Monuments & Melodies is an elliptical allusion to the hits and highlights contained within this 2009 retrospective, a double-disc set that's separated into a CD of singles and a CD of rarities. The first disc does its job efficiently, running through all but two of Incubus' ~Billboard hits -- the minor mainstream rock radio hits "Circles" and "Make a Move" are missing, but the non-charting single "Are You In?" is in its place -- bookended by two strong new Brendan O'Brien productions, "Black Heart Inertia" and "Midnight Swim." The second disc is devoted primarily to B-sides and other stray non-LP tracks, including an acoustic version of "A Certain Shade of Green," a remix of "Pantomime," and a ham-fisted cover of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy," where they get the riff slightly wrong. For the devoted, this disc does provide a nice service of rounding up the tunes that got away, while the fair-weather travelers get a good disc of highlights -- and while there may not be much crossover between these two camps, it does mean that Incubus cover all the bases on Monuments & Melodies, giving something satisfying to every kind of fan they have.