Hot Shots II

This is my introduction to the Beta Band and the first listen made me straight want to go to a second. And third. So this album has been on at any opportunity I could find. With headphones, in the car, or just my home stereo.
And with every listen another layer in a different song makes itself known, which was even more surprising since it seemed like a bit toned down indie electro at the start with some trip-hop influences.
But there's so much more to it than I thought.

I will be playing this a lot on the coming months and it might slowly make its way into my favourite albums. What a discovery!

4,5*

An album with spacious production and eclectic arrangements that ultimately falls flat due to being highly repetitive.

I've never listened to The Beta Band. Not bad! Like a precursor to Alt-J. Pretty minimal folkpoptronica.

Gone is really beautiful. The rest is really forgettable.

Cool stuff. Again, I question how essential this is, but cool stuff.

3.5/5

Is squares the origins of I fell asleep among the flowers for a couple of hours, or was that a sample here too? Regardless, smooth, fun, groovy, dancable, very cool.

I remember the original Beta Band buzz and how it was unfulfilled promise, so I went into this with a little trepidation, and was immediately blown away by the opening track, "Squares", but that might have been more to do with the "Daydream" sample/interpolation and how it reminded me of another song that also came out around this time.

Where was I? Oh yeah, they close the album with a song called "Eclipse" about questions and answers and people lying but proclaim "And the music we make is not particularly good" and I'm undecided if they deserve the pizza or not.

I like much of what they're doing musically, but for me it's the vocals that bring it down. They're so flat and lifeless. I'm mean they're consistent in their relaxed, chilled out way, but there's hardly any emotional dynamics throughout. Makes it so nothing really sticks out.