Beastie Boys
The Mix-Up
*1/2
Man alive, it’s about time the Beasties released some new material. I am so ready for a fresh spittoon of tight, socially conscious rhymes! Wait—wait—what? This is an instrumental album? Aw, crud.
For what it’s worth, The Mix-Up doesn’t feel like an instrumental disc. Rather, it sounds like a hip-hop album that has yet to lay down the vocal tracks; and lemme tell ya, the empty, pulsing promise of forthcoming raps is an unbearable tease.
For the most part, the album isn’t even hip-hop. It’s funk-rock best suited for tobacco aficionados. Organs and drums are all well and good, but the album has such a ’70s through-line that it feels like one neverending track. Imagine an Iron Butterfly jam session: It’s not that they’re untalented, but, really, who wants to hear them dick around for 80 minutes?
Even when they break outside the funk, like on “The Gala Event”—easily the best track on the album—it’s still just a blip on the Beastie radar. Sure, it’s guttural, skulky and hypnotic, but all it really makes me wanna do is go and listen to Portishead. C’mon, Boys, we know you’re talented musicians; if you need to reinforce that, rap about it.