BECK - Guero

With his early work, Beck Hansen from Los Angeles carved out a place for himself in rock history. In practice, in the space of two years the Californian revolutionized the figure of the singer-songwriter, updating it for the Nineties by fusing country, folk, blues, rock, funk and hip-hop. On the albums that followed, rather than repeating the same idea ad nauseam, he set about delving deeper into his various influences, hopping from one genre to another and proving himself master of a varied, eccentric sound. All the while keeping the quality consistently above average.

After channeling his kaleidoscopic palette into folk-rock on the delicate "Sea Change", produced with gleaming precision by Nigel Godrich, Beck decides to put a full stop to his exploratory work. Indeed, the new album, "Guero", presents itself as a harvest of everything sown over ten years of career: 14 tracks in which everything that makes up the Beckian universe is chopped up, strained, blended, distilled (with liberal use of choruses and hand claps) and served in small doses. The operation is essentially similar to what Radiohead did two years earlier with "Hail To The Thief". The success of a project like this rests entirely on the shoulders of inspiration, which needs to be massive and robust to keep the whole thing from collapsing into banality. Unfortunately, "Guero" lacks inspiration that solid.

The limitation of tracks that, while enjoyable, such as the single "E-pro" (a brisk pop-rock number) or the country-rock "Girl", is that they sound like b-sides. Others, like "Black Tambourine" (essentially a repeating bassline shaken up by drum and tambourine hits) or the long country ride "Farewell Ride", sound, strange as it may seem, simply lifeless. There's no shortage of solid moments, however, where the album's concept truly pays off. Take "Que Onda Guero", where Beck recites an "Odelay"-style nursery rhyme, needled by bursts of trumpet and steeped in Latin textures; or "Broken Drum", where a dreamy melody, a razor-sharp guitar, droplets of piano and an electronic pulse sketch out an ethereal atmosphere worthy of "Sea Change"'s finest passages; or "Hell Yes", likely a brainchild of the resurrected Dust Brothers, in which the imp reinterprets Eminem in his own way.

What best captures the regret that follows listening to the album is, if anything, "Rental Car", a lesser sibling of "Minus" (from "Odelay"), which latches onto a decent guitar riff and boasts a few nice arrangement touches, but sounds watered-down: it tries to claw at memories of the past, only to realize it no longer has the claws for it, and ends up dissolving into yet another sing-along chorus. In essence, "Guero" represents not only Beck's first pause for reflection, but also his first genuine misstep. There remains hope that in the future he'll return to blazing his own trail of personal exploration, since his talent remains, even today, beyond question.

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30/04/2026