For an artist who once embodied slacker hipness, Beck has seemed disconcertingly close to misplacing his mojo of late.
His last two records embraced plastic-funk pastiche and tearful balladry; both felt strained and a little obvious. The indolent charm of Odelay, Beck’s honkey-tonk folk-hop masterpiece, had been almost wholly exorcised. It was as though the singer had grown tired of being himself – aghast at the generation-x caricature he had become.
What Guero (Spanish for ‘white boy’) represents then is an attempt to reconnect with the slacker who went away. Having downplayed the legacy of Odelay for nearly a decade, Beck has retrieved his baggy trousers and tie-dye accessories and gone back to work. Guero is more than a sunny reappraisal of the Odelay prototype, it’s an acknowledgment of that album and of the scruffy optimism it exuded.
Opening track, 'E-Pro', hits you like a lazy-faced manifesto. With Odelay producers the Dust Brothers swaddling the song in a bummed-out sheen, its loping riff and nagging vocals could have staggered straight off a Beck set-list from the mid '90s. The sample laden drawl of 'Que’ Onda Guero' reinforces the impression of Beck belatedly courting his past, matching gnarly beats, guttural steel-pedal and a slithery Latino chorus.
Elsewhere there are nods towards lo-fi soul (the exquisitely ramshackle 'Black Tambourine') and blissful grunge-rap ('Hell Yes' feels like 'Loser'’s raunchier older brother). The record culminates in the soporific guitar wig-out of Emergency Exit, in essence a stoner monologue lathered in wistful surf pop.
Gauche, giggly and grandiose, Guero is the album Beck has spent a decade trying not to make. He probably regrets it already.