Flak Magazine: Beta Band's S/T, 03.10.00

When a band's influences are as manifold as the Beta Band's, its songs tend to fall along a quality spectrum. It can produce shimmering, top-notch tunes; it can get bogged down in its influences, which usually results in incoherent mishmashes of incompatible sounds; or it can fall somewhere in the middle.

Up until "The Beta Band," the Scottish quartet had steered almost exclusively toward the desirable end of the gamut. Its three four-song EPs, thankfully compiled on The Three E.P.'s and released earlier this year, are slices of near-perfect pop genius. On these releases, the group flawlessly melded influences ranging from Beck and the Beastie Boys' penchant for sample-oriented, white-guy hip-hop to Deee-Lite's thumping house, Primal Scream's grooving dub and Lennon-inspired lyrics and keys.

The law of averages caught up with the Betas, however, on their self-titled debut full-length. Here, the listener is presented with half an album of convoluted, half-baked, supposed-to-be-psychedelic-but-are-really-just-dumb quasi-ditties. And only two of the songs are strong from start to finish.

If you're willing to hunt, though, there's something redeemable in nearly every song, with "Simple Boy" being the only complete throwaway. Much of the album falls somewhere in the middle, with most of the songs containing only flashes of greatness.

Take, for instance, "The Beta Band Rap," which begins as a cleverly-crafted barbershop quartet parody of nearly every rap group's signature song. However, just in case you didn't get the joke, the Betas switch, mid-song, into an actual lame white-boy rap, which sort of works for awhile but goes on way too long, before switching to '60s "Twist and Shout"-style rock.

"It's Not Too Beautiful," which follows "The Beta Band Rap," is an example of what happens when things go right. Beginning with a sort of whooshing, tetherball-traveling-around-too-fast analog sound, the song finds the band at their most accessible. Singer Stephen Mason chimes in, with just enough reverb to make his voice sound really big, majestic and arena-rocky. I usually don't like this sort of thing, but here, it works. Then, the band just switches, mid-tempo to an extensive sample of John Barry's soaring, majestic theme from Disney's 1979 film, "The Black Hole. After this, the film switches back to the original guitar and analog-based melody before ending with the Barry theme. Great stuff.

The mumbled, dubby "Number 15," in which singer Stephen Mason recounts his "15 reasons not to spend my life with you," is even better. Here, the Betas are truly firing on all cylinders. If you're at all human, you can't help but bob your head, marvel at how seamlessly the bells and keys flit in and out of the mix and hope that if the Beta Band isn't going to spend its life with you, it will at least spend a little more time on its next album.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)