Fans of Beck are able to easily to plot out his career in an array of high points. With each album, he has been able to change his style, moving from novelty rap to folk to orchestral movements to club-worthy dance music. Throughout his 20-year career, the one constant in Beck’s style is its total lack of regularity.
Beck combines the twang of folk-rock with sweeping lightheartedness of symphonic music. Beck himself claimed “Morning Phase” to be the complementary work to his 2002 alt-rock opus “Sea Change.”
The album’s lead single was “Blue Moon,” a track that draws on Beck’s skills as a composer. In the song, his forceful singing is lifted upward by the ensemble of string work and angelic voices.
As a whole, “Morning Phase” holds up against the bulk of Beck’s vast repertoire, but isn’t an album that goes above and beyond the call of his genius. It’s a record Beck newcomers should save for later, whereas the faithfully devoted should take with a grain of salt.