S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

After recording their independent debut album Fungus Amongus, Incubus signed a seven-record deal with Epic Records/Sony-affiliated Immortal Records.[3] An EP titled Enjoy Incubus was released by Epic/Immortal at the beginning of 1997, and Incubus would go on a European tour with labelmates Korn for the next few months.[4] With Enjoy Incubus, the label's strategy was to build the band's fanbase through touring rather than radio airplay.[5] Their first full-length major label effort S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was recorded during May–June 1997. Singer Brandon Boyd said "S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was done in six weeks at 4th Street Recording, a very small, charming studio in Santa Monica. Very different experience, but very important on this band's existence."[6] During the recording, the band utilized older analogue gear that they described as having "phat sounds and spider webs."[7] Incubus chose Jim Wirt to produce the album, since he had worked with them on earlier recordings.[7] Guitarist Mike Einziger believed that Wirt helped encourage their creativity during the recording of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., saying in 1997, "he helps us come up with strange stuff and he likes it when we do. He doesn't try to change what we do, he tries to enhance it."[7] Einziger added that, "when we signed our record deal and started working on this album, we were worried that someone would come along and tell us to hold back, and try and make our songs a little more palatable. But that never happened. They kinda just said, 'do whatever you want'. With that kind of support, we just let everything kind of run wild."[8]

When S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was in the process of being recorded and mastered, the band went on some local mini-tours, in addition to appearing on the soundtrack for the movie Spawn.[5] The soundtrack was released on July 29, 1997, by Epic/Immortal, and featured a collaboration with DJ Greyboy called "Familiar".[9] This song also briefly appeared in the movie itself, which was released to theaters on August 1, 1997.

Musically, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. has been described as alternative metal,[10][11] nu metal,[12][13][14] funk metal,[15][16] and rap metal.[15] It has also been labelled as a "weed-and-mushrooms influenced funk/metal freakout."[17] The album incorporates elements of multiple genres, including heavy metal,[18][19] funk,[18][19] hip hop,[18][20] techno,[18][17] jazz,[19][20][21] and electro.[21] According to Rolling Stone writer Rob Kemp, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. "links funk metal to the rap-metal".[15] "Magic Medicine", described as a trip hop track, samples a recorded reading of a children's book.[22] Though sometimes retrospectively associated with it, the term nu metal was not yet in usage when S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was released, but rather terms such as alternative metal, funk metal and rap metal. In 1997, Boyd said "people are real quick to put labels on music, so I'm sure they're going to do that with us. But we think we're doing something cool, and judging from the responses that we've gotten from all over the world, others do too."[7] Einziger has since stated that Incubus were not part of the same Southern Californian scene as bands like Korn and System of a Down during their independent years, despite having similar influences.[23] In interviews from the late 2010s and 2020s, Boyd has said that he dislikes the nu metal label and doesn't consider the band's early work to be part of the movement.[24][25] In 2022, he remarked, "we weren’t trying to fit into a particular niche at a particular time. We were just kids being influenced by a small handful of bands that we grew up with."[26]

Revolver describe Brandon Boyd as vocally "drawing on the eccentric funk-rap" of Faith No More, Primus and Red Hot Chili Peppers.[27] They consider him to have a "goofy yet also badass presence" on S.C.I.E.N.C.E.[27] Boyd has cited Faith No More's vocalist Mike Patton as being an influence from since he was an early teenager, as well as Patton's side project Mr. Bungle, who were also known for mixing a wide array of genres.[28] In a 1998 interview, Boyd commented, "there's a definite influence from Faith No More. All of us have been listening to that band since when we were really young. We were like 14 or something when that album [The Real Thing] came out. They were an awesome band, they did some really groundbreaking things in their time, and it's kind of a bummer to hear that they broke up."[29]

The band also became interested in emerging forms of electronic music around the making of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., with their previous full-length album Fungus Amongus having no influence from electronic genres. While playing at European festivals with Korn during early 1997, they recall being exposed to foreign electronic acts such as The Chemical Brothers.

About the opening song "Redefine", Boyd said in 1997:

"Redefine" is about the creation of your own reality and your own world. The metaphor I used was humans being like Magic Markers. For so long, they painted black and white pictures in their life because that's all they thought they could do. But they can paint with a different color and make a very vibrant and beautiful picture if they take control.

— Brandon Boyd, [7]

On the single "New Skin", he further elaborated:

In "New Skin", I attribute a scab to the present state of society. The way the scab looks in its worst state is gross and chaotic and horrible, that's now, but when it breaks away, there's a brand new piece of skin that's stronger than before. It's like creation out of chaos.

— Brandon Boyd, [7]

The song "Favorite Things", according to Boyd, related to the topic of religion:

"My Favorite Things" is my personal beliefs about religion and how it oppresses the things I enjoy the most. Unfortunately, the simplest things, such as thinking for myself, creating my own reality and being whatever the hell I want to be each day of my life, are a sin. To be a good Christian basically means to give up the reigns of your life and let some unseen force do it for you.

— Brandon Boyd, [7]

The single "A Certain Shade of Green" has been described as being a song about procrastination.[30] The line "Are you gonna stand around till 2012 A.D.?" is a reference to an interpretation of the Mayan calendar which dictated that the world would end on December 21, 2012. Boyd did not believe this to be true, but it was on his mind as his mother was researching it for a book called Maya Memory: The Glory That Was Palenque.[30]

While recording "Nebula", Boyd said, "we found out what it's like to actually plug a phaser pedal into the wall while it's on. It sounds like a laser gun, and that's the first sound you hear in 'Nebula'."[7] He added that for the song, "we used these walkie-talkies for children that have this Slinky-like coil between them. When you talk through them and hit the coil, it makes this natural reverb, like talking in another dimension."[7]

In 1997, Einziger claimed that the title reflected the experimental nature of the album, and the creative freedom the band were given. He was quoted as saying, "our album is called S.C.I.E.N.C.E. because we were able to experiment. We were able to take our time and get everything to sound the way we wanted it to — weird science and energetic funk."[7] It has also been mentioned by various band members that the acronym S.C.I.E.N.C.E. stands for Sailing Catamarans Is Every Nautical Captain's Ecstasy. "Sometimes, we just sit around and come up with these for laughs. In other words, there's not just one meaning, it's just food for thought," said Boyd in 1998.[31] In other early interviews, band members claimed that the title stood for Stupid Cops Invade Everyone's Natural Chaotic Energy, Sounds Cool in Eyes Near Communistic Entities and Surreal Cats in Economics Never Communicate Estacticly.[32]

Dylan P. Gadino of CMJ New Music Monthly reflected in November 2001 that Incubus "dropped their major-label debut, S.C.I.E.N.C.E., the same year as some nix-metal founders — 1997 also saw the releases of Limp Bizkit's Three Dollar Bill, Y'all and Sevendust's eponymous disc — yet Incubus's music [was] generally more inspired and layered than the efforts of their brooding counterparts."[51] In November 2001, Amy Sciarretto of sister publication CMJ New Music Report further wrote, "Incubus was poised to be hard rock's bastard child of Faith No More and Primus thanks to its resident hottie Brandon Boyd's easy-on-the-ears emulation of Mike Patton and Dirk Lance's bass thwapping. But between 1997's S.C.I.E.N.C.E. and 1999's Make Yourself, the album that broke Incubus at rock radio, the band took a stylistic turn."[52] The 2003 book The Rough Guide to Rock claimed that S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was "better and far more accomplished" than their previous releases Enjoy Incubus and Fungus Amongus.[53] It additionally states that it "gave the band a much smoother, groove-oriented sound. Splashes of funk were offset with driving riffage and spiky turntable shrapnel, while Boyd's lyrics began to encompass a more intellectual world-view than your average rock star."[53] In 2004, David Clayman of IGN called it "fairly impressive, considering the band's age and experience at the time of those recordings",[54] while that same year the Daily Collegian observed that Incubus "had the potential to become the next Faith No More" on S.C.I.E.N.C.E..[55] Vice in 2013 considered it to be their heaviest album, as well as "what a more elastic and bold Red Hot Chili Peppers could be like."[56] Loudwire stated in 2019 that S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was "Incubus at their creative peak, and at their most insane", further adding, "before their music almost entirely mellowed out, Incubus were a high energy genre-bending band of misfits. The sophomore effort fused metal, hip-hop, trip-hop, funk, jazz and even a little bit of house music."[20]

On the album's 20th anniversary in 2017, Spin wrote that it mixes "cartoonish slap bass with bongwater-soaked guitar distortion [and] dubby drum-n-bass with samples from children’s audiobooks." They added, "it’s the sort of record that could have only been made in the late ‘90s. You’d almost expect it to have died in a psychedelics-related car accident before it reached the distinguished age of 20."[57] VH1 ranked the album tenth on their 2015 list of "The 12 Most Underrated Nu Metal Albums",[12] while Revolver included it on a 2021 list of the "20 Essential Nu-Metal Albums".[14] In 2020, Metal Hammer listed it as being one of the best metal albums released between 1996 and 1997,[58] and also included it in another list of the top 10 albums of 1997.[59] In 2022, Louder Sound included it on a list of the 20 best metal albums of 1997.[60] When ranking Incubus's discography in 2020, Kerrang! placed S.C.I.E.N.C.E. third, remarking, "for fans of the band’s heavier, zanier leanings, this remains the high bar against which Incubus releases are now measured. Given the subsequent departures from this template, however, it’s likely those early adopters have been left disappointed. You could therefore argue that S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is something of a creative albatross around the band’s neck."[61]

Geddy Lee of Canadian rock band Rush was a fan of the album, and at one point expressed interest in collaborating with Incubus.[62] Tosin Abasi, guitarist of progressive metal band Animals as Leaders, has mentioned being influenced by it, with his band later touring with Incubus in 2022.[63][64] The band's greatest hits releases The Essential Incubus (2012) and Playlist: The Very Best of Incubus (2013) both include songs from the album,[65][66] while their initial greatest hits release Monuments and Melodies (2009) only included an acoustic version of "A Certain Shade of Green", which was not recorded during the S.C.I.E.N.C.E. era.[67] In 2003, the song "Vitamin" was also featured in the horror film Final Destination 2.[68]