N.E.R.D.

As The Neptunes, production duo Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo have worked with everyone from Britney Spears to Busta Rhymes. With scores of hits and several Grammy nods under their belts, it comes as no shock that the pair would want to turn the flow of their creative juices towards the other side of the mixing board. Under the guise of N.E.R.D., the pair, along with drummer/rapper Shay Haley, has once again given pop and hip-hop a fresh breath of old-school flair and forward-thinking experimentation with their third album, Seeing Sounds.

The first the about Seeing Sounds that jumped out at me is that the album doesn't sit still for a second. Williams and Hugo use that wealth of knowledge gained from working with all the varied artists whose names pad their resume to hopscotch from genre to genre with ease. "Windows" takes a peppy, Outkast-inspired brand of funk and drowns it in pop eclecticism while "Anti Matter" delivers attitude-laden, futuristic hip-hop; yet the two songs flow perfectly from one to the next. Lead single "Everybody Nose" brings an infectious hook that everyone will be singing this summer. The jazzy stand-up bass and smooth vocal of "Yeah You" and the '70s R&B meets Prince vibe on "Sooner Or Later" provide some of the most tuneful moments heard on the album.

A song like "Happy," on the other hand, tends to wander a bit too far; the results are less than satisfying. "Killjoy," "Lovebomb" and opener "Time For Some Action" are others that might be better off getting treatment from your iPod's "skip" button; the laughable lyrics should be reason enough. These few blemishes, along with the handful of familiar melodies heard on the album (maybe these guys have spent a bit too much time with other people’s songs…) aren't enough to take away from the fact that this is, in fact, a good disc. If anything else, Seeing Sounds proves Williams and Hugo to be talented songwriters as well as producers.

—Ryan Ogle
06.17.08

Singers and rappers looking for hits don't go to Pharrell Williams for power pop pumped full of steroids, elaborately arranged baroque pop, mosh-inducing guitar assaults, songs about women doing coke in bathrooms, or philosophical ruminations. Williams, along with fellow Neptune Chad Hugo and longtime associate Shay continue to use N.E.R.D. as an outlet for all the stray ideas that leave sales and airplay considerations in the dust. But it's not as if what they have produced as a trio has been inaccessible, and that goes for their third album, Seeing Sounds, as well. In Search Of... went gold, despite being re-recorded into an inferior band-driven version of the synth-and-drum-machine-heavy original (released outside the U.S. in 2001), while the ambitious and occasionally downright bizarre Fly or Die apparently moved roughly 100,000 fewer units. Those numbers aren't bad, but it was apparent that the average Neptunes fan was thrown (or merely not won over) by the stylistic shifts and seemingly out of character lyrical concepts. Seeing Sounds nonetheless goes down the same route as the previous N.E.R.D. album, and there aren't any crossover feature spots, à la the Madden brothers on "Jump," to push it. The only other changes are that Williams gets three quarters of the songwriting credits alone, whereas Fly or Die was Hugo/Williams all the way, and Shay is put to a little more use. Once again, it is evident that they put all of themselves into the material, from the left of center concepts to arrangements with unpredictable shifts. The piano-led "Sooner or Later" switches back and forth from verses akin to David Bowie's "Changes" and a crashing chorus that is nearly bombastic, incorporating a needling guitar solo, while "Love Bomb" is similarly ambitious, using a similar build and release set-up while sounding much different. Despite all the weight, those songs still have a way of seeming as easy and carefree as the moments when N.E.R.D. are simply bashing away (sometimes over agitated drum'n'bass), blowing off steam, and talking ridiculous nonsense. Whether taken as a diversion of throwaway fun or a deeper (or peculiar) look into what makes these men tick, the album succeeds. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide