The Beta Band
Hot Shots II
Regal 2001

The Beta Band, you gotta love ’em. No, really, I insist. There’s no one like them, is there? I don’t believe in the concept of genius, but if I did I’d say that’s what they were. Even when they’re a bit rubbish, as on the previous album, you still know there’s something amazing going on. Hence they’re everyone’s favourite influence (Blur, for instance), but no one ever gets close.

A very knowing title, this: the second album, the one where they stop messing around, leave the angst behind and try to make a record that will actually sell. What I liked so much about them before, on the EPs, was the loopy-ness of it, the way the songs seemed to be made of slowly mutating loops which gradually turned from one thing into another. Here it’s a bit different; it’s more song-shaped, but the slow, loping dance beats are still there and the general psychedelic hippiness. They’ve brought in some bigshot hip hip producer who’s made it all sparkly clear and put a lovely big bass on it.

It crept up on me, really. I didn’t play it all that much at first, then over the last year it snuck into my stereo more and more.

‘Squares’ is a gorgeous acid ramble. ‘Daydream, I fell asleep amid the flowers,’ really, how do they get away with it? And ‘Broke’, the other single so far, has a wonderful, bubbling, falling-down-the-stairs beat to it. Generally there’s lots of gentle, sad angst about relationships and personal happiness. My only complaint would be ‘Eclipse’, a cringe-making muse on parliamentary democracy and pizza. Music shouldn’t try to be funny (exceptions: Butthole Surfers and Alabama 3).