Well, it finally happened. The album The Beta Band have always promised us has arrived and, despite the almost crushing pressure they placed upon themselves after the so-called failure of their self-titled debut (an album of underrated genius which vocalist, etc. Stephen Mason called “fucking awful”), Hotshots II never disappoints. In fact, Mason, Richard Greentree, Robin Jones, and John Maclean actually manage to succeed expectations at every possible turn.
Hotshots II is one of those rare albums that feels absolutely right from the first listen, and while the immediacy of the grooves in the first track, “Squares”, provides a suitable departure point for the remaining ten tracks, this work is far from immediate. It is challenging yet mindless, visionary yet reverential, self-contained yet wholly universal.
The Beta Band creates music that is familiar in its unfamiliarity and refuses all attempts at classification, representing only the purest intents of challenged progression. It’s hip-hop one moment, Pink Floyd the next, drum and bass in its breakdown, reggae in its upswing.
Those familiar with The Beta Band’s previous work will find some similar moments here. There are multiple styles and segments in each song, like the shuffling acoustics of “Human Being” breaking off into a jam. The Beta Band offers everything from the loping beats of “Broke” to the sedated beginning of the misleadingly named “Quiet”, which then explodes into a bass-heavy verse of confused introversion. They tell us, “You can go outside where the sun and the people will blind you/ Or you can go outside where the love of the people will find you.”
And still we move forward. Though each track is a highlight in itself, it is finally the closing quartet of tracks that solidify this effort into something truly massive. The initially playful “Alleged” (“Goin’ round with a hole in my head/ I used the bullets that came with the game you gave me”) implies both innocence and experience, slowly expanding into a chorus of twinkling guitar and later fading into an utterly openhearted acoustic coda. “Life” features some of the most literally damaging bass ever heard.
“Eclipse”, the true closer of the album, tells the story of “the people with the questions” and “the people with the answers” who don’t realize that “we all live together on a little round ball/ We all sing together when the cuckoo calls.” It is perhaps The Beta Band’s most ambitious track, but it’s also their most straightforward, next to the album’s minimal “Gone”. “Eclipse” is a folk track that moves from fairy tale rhyming to a “Yellow Submarine” climax to a rather profound exposition on, ahem, pizza (trust me, it makes sense in the song). Finally, “Won”, with guest rapper, fellow label mate, and underground legend Sean Reveron, lifts from Harry Nilsson’s “One” and transforms it into the chorus of an unrelenting verse. By any standard it’s a far better track than anything put out recently by any major rap label and a stunning closer to a stunning album.
No more can be said. Go buy this album. Believe. This is the one.
+ marc ruppel
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