One gets the sense from Incubus singer Brandon Boyd that the group would just as soon not have put together its new greatest hits package, "Monuments and Melodies."

As Boyd noted, the band was aware that such albums sometimes send an unwanted signal to the public -- and to bands themselves.

"It's a humbling thought that a band has been around long enough to put together a greatest-hits album," he said. "And it was a little too humbling to us in certain ways because we still feel like we have a lot to offer the world of music and art, and it's hard to admit to yourself that you're sort of on the decline in your career."

So Boyd, in a recent phone interview, said he and his bandmates, are fighting any notion that a greatest-hits album means Incubus has seen its best days.

"What we've done is, we've said, 'OK, we're not going to admit that to ourselves because that might not be true,'" he said. "We would like to make this album be almost like a benchmark. It's like, 'OK, we've reached square one, and maybe we can use this as a way to help launch us into the next 20 years of our career.'"

"Monuments and Melodies" became a reality, and Incubus is even on tour this summer to promote the package. Part of what ended up making the project more exciting, Boyd said, was the decision to include not only one disc full of hits, but also a second disc that includes 11 unreleased songs recorded throughout the group's nearly two-decade history.

Most are worth hearing, including the graceful midtempo rocker "Neither of Us Can See," the fevered rocker "Look Alive," the crunchy and hooky "Martini" and the gauzy, richly melodic ballad "Monuments and Melodies."

Boyd said the band doesn't consider the unreleased songs to be throwaways in any sense. In general, they just didn't fit well on the albums for which they were recorded.

"Those songs that we didn't put on those albums, they stand on their own. They're really cool songs," Boyd said. "A couple of them, people have heard before. Like live, when we played a bunch of them, the studio versions have never been put out. So some of that is there on this B disc."

While a few of the outtakes are older, most of the tracks on the second disc are of a recent vintage.

"Most of the stuff on this B disc, it's pretty recent stuff from the 'Light Grenades' sessions and the 'A Crow Left of Murder' sessions," Boyd said, mentioning the group's two most recent CDs.

This makes sense, considering Incubus had begun spending more time on those two CDs and had recorded more songs for consideration for "A Crow Left of Murder" (2004) and "Light Grenades" (2006).

Up to then, the band had been on a pretty consistent cycle of recording and touring, and had generally cranked out its CDs in three or four months each. That is typical for acts as they build momentum in their careers. And for much of its first decade, that's exactly what Incubus was doing.

Formed in 1991 in Calabasas, it took the group several years to settle into its early lineup of Boyd, turntable artist DJ Chris Kilmore, guitarist Mike Einziger, bassist Dirk Lance and drummer Jose Pasillas. Lance left the band in 2003 and was replaced by Ben Kenney.

It also took the band a while to make an impression on the music scene. Its first two CDs, 1995's "Fungus Amongus" and 1997's "S.C.I.E.N.C.E.," failed to make many waves. That changed in a big way with the 1999 release "Make Yourself." It sold more than 2 million copies and produced three hit singles: "Pardon Me," "Drive" and "Stellar."

What also began to change with "Make Yourself" was the band's sound. Early on, Incubus was compared with groups like 311, Korn and Rage Against the Machine, which were also mixing elements of hip-hop, funk and hard rock.

But on "Make Yourself," Incubus began to move toward more of a melodic hard-rock sound. The group hasn't looked back since. On its subsequent CDs -- "Morning View" (2001), "A Crow Left of Murder" and "Light Grenades" -- Incubus has continued to broaden its musical scope, while also maintaining its popularity. Each of those albums has been a platinum-plus hit.

To this day, Boyd has a hard time defining the Incubus sound. The only description he said he can use with any conviction is that Incubus is a rock 'n' roll band. The elusiveness in the group's sound, Boyd said, is partly a product of the band's philosophy toward songwriting.

"One of the wonderful things about being in this band is also one of the things that's the most frightening," he said. "It's really that there's a chaotic nature to creativity, especially when you are allowing the creative process to do what it wants to do. And I'm speaking of it (the creative process) almost like a separate entity, because a lot of times that's what it feels like. It feels like you're dealing with a different personality that decides to arrive whenever it wants to arrive.

"And you add that group dynamic to it, and it's almost like you're five guys around this wild, chaotic beast, and you're trying to corral it into something that's listenable. So what I was saying was the wonderful thing as well as the scary thing about being in this band is that we have allowed that beast, as it were, that beautiful monster of creativity, to grow and morph and change in whatever way she has wanted to, and so the process feels like it continually changes."

Where the creative beast will take Incubus next is anyone's guess, Boyd said. The band has been on hiatus for more than a year now and hasn't done any formal work on a new CD. Once the tour in support of "Monuments and Melodies" is completed, that will change.

"We are definitely going to be writing … in hopes of putting out a record sometime in 2010," Boyd said. "That's the hope. We can never force anything. I definitely have the suspicion that we're going to get on the road together this summer, and we're just going to start playing and stuff is going to start brewing, and we're going to light that fire again."

This summer, though, will give Incubus a chance to look back on its career in the live setting, although Boyd stopped short of saying the band would play a greatest-hits set.

"Truth be told, our sets usually have remnants of that type of thing anyway," he said. "We like to try and cover a lot of ground, and this set will be no exception there. We'll probably play a lot of everything. There will be some new material, there will be some old material. We like to take our listeners on a bit of a ride. We like to leave room for improvisation as well. We'll try to squeeze it all into around two hours."

Incubus, with the Duke Spirit

When: 7:30 p.m. July 9

Where: Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre, 2050 Entertainment Circle, Chula Vista

Tickets: $26-$51.50

Info: 619-220-8497 or ticketmaster.com

Web: enjoyincubus.com