The Beta Band: The Beta Band : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Earlier this year, the Beta Band introduced itself to America with The 3 E.P.'s, collecting its techno-hippie mTlange into an album guaranteed to clear the dance floor faster than a DEA badge. The Beta Band finds this hairy London foursome getting even wackier -- at last, the trip-hop Jethro Tull has delivered its Thick As a Brick. The Beta males layer warped voices, pastoral guitars and random sound effects over slow-motion loops to evoke a chance meeting between King Crimson circa 1969 and Happy Mondays circa 1989. Of course, it's not all gold, but the funniest tunes will give you fits -- try "The Cow's Wrong," which features singer Stephen Mason intoning bovine poetry until the drum machine's batteries wear down. Even the filler is good for a chuckle, and anyone with a weakness for dotty Brits will cherish the sheer fuzzy-headed bulk of The Beta Band. And if you're related to one of the band members, you might even make it all the way through "The Beta Band Rap." (RS 816-817)

ROB SHEFFIELD