''8'' is the eighth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Incubus An incubus is a demon in male form in folklore that seeks to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women; the corresponding spirit in female form is called a succubus. In medieval Europe, union with an incubus was supposed by some to result in t ...

. It was released on April 21, 2017, through

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...

. The album takes its name from being the band's eighth LP. The release of ''8'' in 2017 saw the longest time between full-length albums for Incubus. The album was previously produced by

Dave Sardy David Stuart Sardy (born 1967), more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning mo ...

, and later re-produced and mixed by

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ and music producer. Growing up in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he joined the post-hardcore band From First to Last as the lead sing ...

, a close friend of the band. The album's first single, " Nimble Bastard", peaked at number 4 on the ''

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Mainstream Rock Songs Mainstream Rock is a music chart in ''Billboard'' magazine that ranks the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the United States, a category that combines the formats of active rock and heritage rock. The chart was launched in Ma ...

chart in April 2017.

Background

The writing for ''8'' began at the end of 2015, when the band was putting together Side B of their ''Trust Fall'' EP. However, with the amount of quality content they were producing, they decided to release an LP instead. Recording took place throughout 2016 and 2017, with production and remixing occurring throughout the cycle, including a few weeks before the final release. This was due to

's late involvement with the project.

Critical reception

''8'' received mixed reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 45 based on 7 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Many listeners praised the band's return to rock with tracks like "Throw Out the Map" and "No Fun", the overall quality of production, as well as

Brandon Boyd Brandon Charles Boyd (born February 15, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, author and visual artist. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the American rock band Incubus, with whom he has recorded eight studio albums. In a ...

's vocal range, while others criticized the lack of personality within the album.

Commercial performance

''8'' debuted at number four on the ''Billboard'' 200, moving 52,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s; it sold 49,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

activity and

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

sales. In the second week, the album dropped at No.127, but re-surfaced within the top 100 at No.53 in the third week.

Track listing

Personnel

Personnel as listed in the album's liner notes are:

Incubus

– lead vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion, additional production (tracks 1, 3, 6–8, 10), art direction *

Michael Einziger Michael Aaron Einziger (born June 21, 1976) is an American musician, songwriter and producer. He is best known for being co-founder and guitarist of the rock band Incubus, and has also co-written, produced and collaborated with a wide array of a ...

– lead guitar, piano, backing vocals, string orchestration and arrangements, conducting, additional production (tracks 1, 3, 6–8, 10), additional engineering * Jose Pasillas II – drums *

Chris Kilmore Chris Kilmore (born January 21, 1973) is an American musician and DJ. He is the turntablist and keyboardist of the rock band Incubus since 1998. Allmusic–Incubus bio./ref> Discography * '' Make Yourself'' (1999) * '' When Incubus Attacks ...

– piano, keyboards, mellotron, organ, turntables *

Ben Kenney Benjamin Lee Kenney Sr. (born March 12, 1977) is an American musician from Brielle, New Jersey. He is the current bass guitarist for the band Incubus (since 2003) and had previously played in the Roots as a guitarist. He also records as a sol ...

– bass, backing vocals

Recording

– production (uncredited) *

– co-production (tracks 1, 3, 5, 7), electric guitar, additional production (11), mixing (1-6, 8–9, 11) *James Monti – engineer *Cameron Barton – assistant engineer *Matt Tuggle – 2nd engineer *Bryan Dimaio – 3rd engineer *Gabe Sackier – additional engineering *Todd Hurtt – additional engineering *Gentry Studer – mastering

Artwork

*Brantley Gutierrez – art direction, band photography *Alberto Erazo – design

Charts

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2017 albums Incubus (band) albums Island Records albums