by: Sean Boy
'Hot Shots II', the second proper album from The Beta Band is anything but sophomoric. After allegedly disavowing their last, self-titled album, The Beta Band set aside much of their musical high jinx and frequent genre hopping to hone and focus their sound. The end result is a solid, flowing album of mostly downtempo pop ballads jacked up with break beats and samples. Tinged with a reverent, almost worshipful, tone the album moves along at a laid back speed, bordering on lethargic, but spirited breaks keep things interesting. For example, the pace picks up by eighty or so BPMs midway through the track "Dragon," the center point of the album, as it breaks down then evolves into an almost acid-house beat. Lively beats continue to pop up here and there throughout the remaining tracks, the album culminating in a new and improved Beta Band Rap. This time, thankfully, the rhyming has been left to those with proper skills.
While The Beta Band's self titled album was a full pastiche of any and all styles, the back-to-basic restraint shown on 'Hot Shots II' frees up the band to create actual songs, songs which fit one with another into an actual album, and not something that sounds like three EPs sewn together.
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