IT IS A BETA BAND THREAD

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This is where you post about Hot Shots II etc. etc.

― Josh, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I've only heard 2 tracks so far and they're...ummm...nice but that's about it. Maybe a bit mnore of a grower than 3EPs then. I'll still go out and buy the cd, though.

― PhilT, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Lazy man that I am, I still don't have it yet. Soon. I'll believe it's great until proven otherwise. Uh, yeah.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I was sold it on Monday in the US, ha.

It's very... slow. Even the more uptempo tunes feel slower (and that's not just because some of them have a stutter-beat thing goin on). I wonder if this won't lead it to being misinterpreted as not-as-good.

― Josh, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I liek Dry the Rain. Sampled drums?

― Mike Hanley, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

i fail to see the attraction with the beta band. to me they sound like a less irritating badly drawn boy. i have only heard the 3 eps collection. is this a representative record?

― gareth, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Great album. haven't read reviews any reviews. Don't need it. I've heard about five tracks on the radio and it sounds great.

We need bands like this. i was thinking of how the Slits worked with a reggae producer and now this band are working with an R n'B producer. That's always a positive sign. We need bands that have a bit of vision- especially indie bands since they tend to be so closed up to other music.

Can't wait to get it later on.

― Julio Desouza, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I listened to it for the first time properly on the way into work today, and am under the impression that it's very good indeed. There are only a few bits which really grab you immediately, for example the effortlessly funky riff which pops up half way through Quiet, but the album as a whole has a very beguiling feel to it. Also, I've never heard indie pop (or whatever they're calling it these days) mixed with RnB, and it sounds like a convincing, organic fusion rather than a bit of a Beck-shaped mess. The only problem is I can't decide whether the album is "a coherant whole with a consistent sense of mood" or just a bit samey. Either way, it's fine to listen to.

The lyrics to the last song made me smile... political statements which read like nursery rhymes or children's stories, nice.

― Matt D'Cruz, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

And no, it isn't very much like the 3 EPs, which for every great tune had at least one piece of self-indulgent bollocks.

― Matt D'Cruz, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Everything I've heard (about six tracks) has been fantastic - cool rhythms, excellent production and top tunes. Weird but wonderful incorporations of R&B, garage, IDM, synth pop, reggae et. al. into their chant-pop aesthetic - I'm thinking that this is the mainstream 'post-rock' band for people who don't like Radiohead (as well as people who do). "Broke" especially totally rocks my world.

Gareth, I found The Three E.P.s to be quite underwhelming as well. The first proper album was in turns excellent and confusing, and Hot Shots II is shaping up as plain excellent. Not sure what Josh means about it being slow - er, compared to what else that they've done?

― Tim, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Just got the CD yesterday (pre-order from Amazon, might've thought I'd get it on the day of release, miserable bastards) given it a few spins and it seems like it's got a bit more depth than the 3 EP's. It's definitely a continuation of Steve Mason's King Biscuit Time side-project rather than the earlier, more *indie* material. There isn't an *alternative anthem* on the album like 'Dry The Rain' but this is perhaps to their credit.

A special mention has to go to to the final track on the album, 'Eclipse'. This is surely the band's finest moment, especially the superb ending sequence. And I'm off to see them on Friday in Manchest*o* which can't come quickly enough if I'm perfectly honest.

― Add, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I listened to it yesterday, and I have not had the urge to listen to it again. I did like the first album, a lot more than The Three EPs (which loads of people seem to think is strange) *because* of all the stupid, weird, demented shit about Pyramids and Jaws samples and songs about their managers, which they now denounce as being shite.

So with this new album, they have taken off all the rough, demented, crazy, psychotic edges which I liked so much, and replaced them with this sort of smooth, slightly off-kiltre (but still thoroughly classically indie) Scottish Soul Band sort of nonsense.

I don't like it. I really don't.

― masonic boom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I got around to three listens and while I definitely find it pleasant to the ears, it just fails to move me. I dunno, 'Hot Shots II' hooks me, but can't seem to reel me in completely. I like 'Won' a lot, though. I've never been to a Beta Band gig (canceled on our Canadian asses two years ago), so I've never heard it before. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised that by the end of this week, I'll fall in love with it, though it's getting competition from the new Built to Spill.

― alex in montreal, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Love it and love them. Pastoral and folk cores wrapped in layers of post-rock, IDM, etc., as Tim said, and doing it more "naturally" than Radiohead and without the kitchen-sink feeling of Beck and some others who seem to approach music by twisting genres rather than blending sounds. Lyrics can lapse into hippy territory, but the lyrics are hardly the point then, are they? Five songs on the radio? Is it getting a push/selling well in the UK?

Can't wait to see them in a couple of weeks, e

― scott p., Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Tim - I know, "slow" isn't quite right, because the tempos are about what they always have been. But the rhythms carrying the tempos are a lot less propulsive (in that andante sort of way), I think.

― Josh, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

they should have called it 'hot shots: part deux'

― ethan, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

A Beta Moment:

Yesterday, I finally got my hands on the thing and,yes, it's an exceptional album. Today, I woke up a little earlier than expected and decided to give it a morning spin. During the outro to "Dragon" (the part that sounds like a computer processing alien signals while tiny static snippets of twang float in and out), I hear a particularly distinctive bit of twang, a warbling voice singing something about his "honey" and I notice how superb the constrast between the electronics and the old-time folk melody sounds. Then I realize that my tinny-as-crap alarm clock radio has switched on and is softly playing a dance remix of a David Gray song. (!)

(I came back later and attempted to play the album again and the CD fell *inside* my CD stereo! FUXOR! Thankfully, I retrieved it and is fine. Phew!) (PS. Tim, I feel your pain- my version was an Australia import and also doesn't contain "Won".

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

(is this the place to say thst I have always had my yes-flame pre-doused, BB-wise, by their TRANSCENDENTALLY RUBBISH NAME)

― mark s, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

No Mark. No it is not.

― Josh, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I nearly lost all interest in them when I had to endure this absolute cunt sitting next to me in the line for the first Radiohead/Kid Koala/Beta Band show at Liberty State Park, NJ having a 25 MINUTE ARGUMENT with his moron girlfriend about whether their name was pronounced "bay-tah" or "bee-tah". If their set hadn't been so excellent, I might have had to kill them for their fans' transgressions. Cue Sloan quote here.

― Dave M., Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Hey! Solinger! You didn't tell us you went to see the Betas!

― Josh, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

Hot Shots II’ is my first, belated, encounter with The Beta Band. Gentle, hazy pop, summery tones, Syd Barret Floyd–era pastoral harmonies, hip-hop rhythms, eclectic and ambitious. Yet I’m very under whelmed.

The much praised ‘Al Sharp’ is weak art-house pop forlornly trying to be ‘Higher than the Sun’. ‘Gone’ has a slow melancholic feel that meanders around to no great purpose. The opening and close of ‘Dragon’ hints at a dark stirring vibe but, not for the first time, they over egg the pudding. ‘Broke’ opens with an ‘Alive + Kicking’ piano motif that leaves me yawning even as they attempt to throw salsa, warp-sub-bass , and the kitchen sink into the mix.

A foppish, proggy ‘trip-hop’ whose clever-clever stylistic mutations frustrate more than they please.

― stevo, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

10 years pass...

This is a lovely, wonderful record.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 20 September 2012 11:08 (8 months ago) Permalink

Their best album by a mile, including The Three EP's.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, 20 September 2012 11:50 (8 months ago) Permalink

Only really consistently great thing they ever did. They hit on aesthetic that worked for them and could never really follow it up.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 20 September 2012 11:52 (8 months ago) Permalink

I still like Heroes to Zeroes a lot too, but yes, this is more consistent. 3EPs has some awesome highs, but some indulgent dross, too. debut album a rightly-disowned mess.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 20 September 2012 11:54 (8 months ago) Permalink

there's some great stuff on the debut. but yes HSII is streets ahead.

― jabba hands, Thursday, 20 September 2012 11:57 (8 months ago) Permalink

streets ahead lol

― LaMonte, Friday, 21 September 2012 00:08 (8 months ago) Permalink

I saw them on tour for this album & yeah, streets ahead!

― Broney, Pt. 1 (Pillbox), Friday, 21 September 2012 01:11 (8 months ago) Permalink

otm

― lag∞n, Friday, 21 September 2012 01:28 (8 months ago) Permalink

laughing at this use of "streets ahead" btw not bb. they were ace

― LaMonte, Friday, 21 September 2012 03:11 (8 months ago) Permalink

^streets behind

― jabba hands, Friday, 21 September 2012 10:09 (8 months ago) Permalink

never tire of this

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Friday, 21 September 2012 10:13 (8 months ago) Permalink

what happened to these guys

― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 21 September 2012 10:15 (8 months ago) Permalink

various underwhelming solo projects but steve mason's stuff is all worth checking out, esp the king biscuit time EPs and Boys Outside album

― jabba hands, Friday, 21 September 2012 10:30 (8 months ago) Permalink

Cosign.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 21 September 2012 11:01 (8 months ago) Permalink

i really like both of the aliens albums.

― mark e, Friday, 21 September 2012 11:58 (8 months ago) Permalink

various underwhelming solo projects

Concubine Rice still sounds pretty good these days.

― kwhitehead, Friday, 21 September 2012 17:14 (8 months ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

despite never being much of a beta band fan i am enjoying (most of) steve mason's new solo record

― gila free (electricsound), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 05:25 (1 month ago) Permalink

Also... the three eps are back on vinyl for record store day this year.

― NWOFHM! Overlord (krakow), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 07:32 (1 month ago) Permalink

despite never being much of a beta band fan i am enjoying (most of) steve mason's new solo record

― gila free (electricsound), Wednesday, April 3, 2013 6:25 AM (2 hours ago)

Yeah, it's great and probably the best thing he's done since The Beta Band (that first King Biscuit Time EP aside)

― groovypanda, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 07:56 (1 month ago) Permalink

cool 2001

― buzza, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 08:05 (1 month ago) Permalink

I loved 'Boys Outside'. The new one has some fantastic songs on it but they're diminished for me by the filler inbetween, especially the instrumental/seague tracks. I appreciate that they're an important part of how Mason has tried to theme the album but for the most part they're throwaways to me ears. Some of the proper tracks on it are really heartfelt and beautiful, not too keen on the gospel tinged stuff though.

― Internet Alan, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 08:31 (1 month ago) Permalink

Anyone who likes Steve Mason should hunt down a copy of his Speedy Wunderground single with Toy and Emiliana Torrini - I Go Out. It's certainly one of my favourite singles of the year so far. The sound quality on this YouTube is well ropey because it's a vinyl rip but still...

― Doran, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 08:47 (1 month ago) Permalink

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