Light Grenades is the sixth studio album by alternative rock bandIncubus, released on November 28, 2006 on Epic Records. The album sold 359,000 copies during its first week of release worldwide, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in the US in its first week; it is the band's first number one album. However, until November 20, 2016, Light Grenades held the dubious honor of having the title of the biggest drop from No. 1 in chart history, falling to number 37. The album only achieved Gold, breaking a string of Platinum records beginning with 1999's Make Yourself.
History
"Earth to Bella" and "Love Hurts" made their live debut in front of an audience at the Make Some Noise concert on April 29, 2006. "A Kiss to Send Us Off" and "Anna Molly" made their live debut on VH1's Decades Rock: Live Tribute to the Pretenders on August 11, 2006, even though the songs were not featured in the program. The same two songs were also performed at Edgefest 2006 on September 30 at Tempe Beach Park, Arizona. "Rogues" made its debut at a pair of pre album-release shows at the London Astoria and the Berlin Postbahnhof on November 14 and 16, 2006. The songs "Punch Drunk" and "Look Alive" were recorded during the Light Grenades sessions, but were originally only available as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition of the album. Live versions have since seen release worldwide on the Look Alive live DVD. The studio versions of both songs are also on Monuments and Melodies.
Musical style
, Incubus' guitarist, commented in an interview with MTV that the album "sounds like 13 different bands playing 13 different songs... Every time we're about to start making a new album, I tell myself, 'Okay, this one's going to be cohesive,' and it never happens." For the most part, Light Grenades expands upon the sounds previously explored in 2004's A Crow Left of the Murder.... Other songs showcase a new direction for the band. For example, Brandon Boyd describes the curious recording technique behind "Paper Shoes": "There's a song called 'Paper Shoes' where Michael and I mic'd our bodies with ambient mics and did the percussion tracks pounding on our chests and skulls. The galloping rhythm is us pounding on our chests. It was really funny. We were trying so hard not to laugh because we were sitting there like cavemen beating our chests!"
Themes
When asked about the album title, Boyd explained: "There's a song called that on the record and it felt like the most pertinent conceptual aspect of the album, the idea of throwing ideas at problems and the ideas explode with light and good results and intention on consciousness. So I started imagining imagery of students in different countries protesting and throwing Molotov cocktails with masks over their faces. But there's one brave student who runs up to the police line and, as opposed to throwing rocks or things that destroy, there's this concept of that one courageous, lonely student running up and throwing ideas and having them actually change things. It just seemed kind of a cool concept: the redefining of weaponry."
"Dig" is the second single from Light Grenades. The video for the single was chosen from a pool of applicants in a fan-film contest. The song is featured in the music video gameLego Rock Band.
"Love Hurts" was released as the third single in some international markets. It was released as the fourth US single in October 2008, 16 months after "Oil and Water".
"Oil and Water" was the third US single. It was released to radio stations on June 5, 2007.
