The No.1 website for musicians
Out now (EMI)
The high-energy rap veterans return with their much-delayed eighth album.
As they quickly reach their mid-forties you can’t help but feel that by now we have to take the Beastie Boys’ threats - on Nonstop Disco Powerpack - that they’re going to “rock the house ‘til the break of dawn” with a pinch of salt.
Of course, we’re not ones for ageism here at MusicRadar, and the loss of one’s youth by no means equates to a loss of musical ability. Although it is fair to say that the Beastie Boys have been in ‘the game’ for some time now, and almost inevitably a lot of their appeal these days lies in nostalgia value.
In terms of production Hot Sauce… relies heavily on ‘90s-sounding drum breaks and old-fashioned turntabalism, and what efforts have been made to update the Boys’ sound - mainly through Vocoder-type vocal effects - tend to fall a little flat.
That said, nostalgia value isn’t such a bad thing, and if nothing else Hot Sauce… is a reminder of what made the Beastie Boys so popular in the first place - a punk-rock attitude towards hip-hop, a sense of humour and (even at this age) a lot of energy. The best moments here - the witty rhymes of Here’s A Little Something For Ya and the inevitable punk blast of Lee Majors Come Again, for example - are a nice flashback to the Beastie Boys’ past achievements. That is, however, the best we can hope for it seems.
