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Video premiere: Brandon Boyd's 'Space & Time'

Patrick Ryan
USA TODAY
  • Song comes from Boyd%27s new EP%2C %27Compass%2C%27 out June 25
  • A full-length album from his project Sons of the Sea is due later this year
  • Boyd calls Sons songs %22more accessible%22
Brandon Boyd's new music has Beach Boys and Nilsson influences.

The lyric video for Brandon Boyd's Space & Time acquaints listeners with a new side of the Incubus frontman, best known for alt-rock hits such as Drive and Wish You Were Here. Created as an "in-house" project rather than a studio product, the musician concocted the video himself using iMovie and an uncopyrighted NASA animation video.

"I watched the video on silent and it was just uncanny how much the imagery lined up with the lyrics of the song in a literal sense," Boyd says of the clip, which is in support of his new EP, Compass, out June 25.

The four-song solo record comes by way of his music project Sons of the Sea with producer Brendan O'Brien. The tunes evoke the sounds of the Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson while still echoing Boyd's funk-metal style, developed over 20 years as Incubus' lead vocalist.

Piano- and rhythm-based, and playing off his "weird pop tendencies," Boyd was excited to find that each song on Compass sounds unlike anything he's done before. It's a diverse palette of musical sensibilities that he'll further be exploring on a full-length album, slated for release later this year.

"Probably the most striking difference between Sons of the Sea and Incubus is that Sons of the Sea is more accessible, I guess you could say?" Boyd says. "It's not as much heavy or alternative rock like Incubus, it's a lot more song-based."

Check out the Space & Time lyric video, premiering on USA TODAY.

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