Earlier this month, we learned of Brandon Boyd’s second solo release being a work with producer Brendan O’Brien, and that he had titled the “band” Sons of the Sea. The EP, Compass, comes out tomorrow, June 25; the Incubus front man released a lyric video on Elle.com today. It should also be noted that in the Elle article, they call the Goo Goo Dolls and Incubus grunge. We just want to point that out.

Boyd indicated this was the first time he had written with people other than Incubus. He said, “When [producer] Brendan O’Brien said he was interested in writing songs with me, it was an enticing proposition as I had never written music with anyone else other than my band,” Boyd told ELLE.com. “‘Lady Black,’ the first song we recorded together, was so different from anything else that either of us had done especially with each other [with Incubus]... [We were] two artists who had worked together before, but now in a completely different context. So as we continued over six months, every song we worked on was different from the next one. It was process of continual discovery and that is essentially how Sons of the Sea came together.”

The music is as poppy as Boyd had earlier indicated, verging into Seal-like territories. We don’t feel guilty about liking it, but if you’re expecting some heavy rock material, you’ll be very confused. Boyd has long had a poppy voice; he’s utilizing it in a pop context now. Hear the new song after the jump on June 26; until then, it is locked as an exclusive on the Elle website here.

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Dan Bogosian

I finished school with a music theory degree. Before I finished school, I was a janitor. You really should apologize to all the janitors you've ever had. You hurt them. Seriously. You did.

But, now that we've cleared that up and you called your high school janitor, know that I quit being a janitor to pursue writing about music. So here I am, and here you are, and hey how are you?

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