Reviews thread

[dave790]

Figure we may as well have a thread for all the reviews...though maybe this should be in the press section. Whatever. I'll kick us off, BBC review, preety darn good too....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/dqwx

BBC Review

The Beasties’ seventh LP is catnip for fans of their classic early-90s output.
Stevie Chick 2011-04-21

Even the Beasties themselves would agree they don’t figure in the upper echelons of the pantheon of great rappers, though several of their LPs – specifically 1989’s Paul’s Boutique, 1992’s Check Your Head and 1994’s Ill Communication – remain epochal joints, especially to "heads" of a certain age. The Beasties’ genius lies in compensating for their less-than-finessed flows by juggling an ineffable sense of cool that makes a virtue of their terminally-uncool nerdiness, their samples and references and goofy jokes cooking up a world of their own any dweeb would love to dwell in.
Beasties albums, at their best, are immense amounts of fun. Sometimes they’re more than that – MCA’s autobiographical Bodhisattva Vow from Ill Communication proving that the trio shouldn’t shy away from getting serious. Sometimes they fail at fun: hello, 2004’s arid To the 5 Boroughs. Their seventh full-length-proper, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, is scads of fun, its first half especially so. Their wizard blend of goofy creativity and deft discipline ensures that the best tracks here are simultaneously scattershot and focussed – like the way Too Many Rappers cooks up mean funk from Space Invaders noise and cranium-crushing low-end (and throws in a guesting Nas), or how Say It pulls nagging hooks from abstract feedback drones and then welds them to subterranean bass grooves that could level mountains, before collapsing into stoned synth doodles that’ll amuse all but the terminally dreary. On paper, both are messes; but on record they make canny sense.
The sound of the Beasties here is catnip for those who still revere their late 80s/early 90s output: vocals are drenched in reverb like a hippie dabs patchouli, while the tracks fuse live instrumentation and samples with a simpatico they’ve perfected since Check Your Head, delivering tracks alive with ideas and chaos and funk and noise and groove, dense enough to get lost in for at least a summer. They don’t shy away from pop moments, though: OK has a dippy new wave catchiness evoking Ad-Rock’s BS 2000 side-project – it’s as infectious as crabs – while the dub-a-delic Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win has Santigold playing straight-woman to their Marx-Brothers-of-Rap lunacy with an aplomb that could own the charts if the weather stays balmy.
The second half wanes, but only slightly: Lee Majors Come Again reminds us that the Beasties earned their punk cred ages ago and can leave it alone now, please; but instrumental Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament gets colossal with an ear for detail akin to the best dub, while Crazy Ass Shit closes the album on a seemingly-throwaway note. Truth is, to cook up such joyful nonsense probably takes a helluva lot of effort, but it’s the Beasties’ gift to make this seem easier than falling off a mountain bike, and an infinite amount more fun.

[JoLovesMCA]

Thanks for that, actually thought of making a thread like this. Will be sure to add on to it! :p

[brooklyndust]

I know I said earlier that I don't care for reviews.

But this is nice one:

http://www.ology.com/music/album-review-hot-sauce-committee-part-two-beastie-boys

There’s a scene in Jay-Z’s 2004 documentary Fade To Black where Mike D of the Beastie Boys goes to visit his old friend, producer Rick Rubin, who’s holed up in the studio recording “99 Problems” with the soon to retire rapper. “All these records I used to listen to—these guys are the creators of it,” Jay-Z proudly proclaims into camera, “They’re architects of what we do right now.” It’s a nice little moment that compounds with relevance when you stop to think exactly how long the Beastie Boys have been doing what they do. For a lot of people, 1986’s Licensed To Ill was their first taste of this new thing called “hip-hop”—a sonic whirlwind of heavy beats, punk rock attitude, and (most importantly) a collage-like sensibility that drew upon everything that came before it, from lo-fi gospel recordings to James Brown’s “Funky Drummer”. Creatively, anything was possible with this new music, and nobody epitomized the aesthetic potential quite like the Beastie Boys. From the encyclopedic pop culture smorgasbord of Paul’s Boutique to the alternative rocking, world music dabbling Hello Nasty, nothing ever seemed out of reach creatively for Mike Diamond and Adams Yauch and Horovitz.

Their first proper hip-hop album in seven years, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (in stores and online May 3rd) ditches the polished, sample-heavy hip-hop traditionalism of 2004’s To The 5 Boroughs and returns to the retro, borderline lo-fi pastiche of the Check Your Head/Ill Communication era—the new songs bang more than they bounce, with the “boys” dousing their remarkably still-fresh rhymes with more guitar and drum set clatter than your local Guitar Center. First single “Make Some Noise” flaunts its wonky organ riff and gritty live drumming gleefully, with MCA’s line “My rhymes age like wine as I get older” ringing especially true. “Nonstop Disco Powerpack” is a classic roundtable vocal exercise, with all three Beasties sounding just as fresh and snarky (“I take sucker rappers, I put ‘em through a strainer like macaroni, ‘cause the shit sounds cheesy!”) as ever.

Altogether, this might be the group’s most cohesive album… well, ever. Never before known to simply stick with one sound, here the Beasties hunker down stylistically, dishing out killer groove after killer groove doused with enough old school keyboards (“OK”), Nintendo sound effects (“Say It”), and antique Moog synthesizers (“Tadlock’s Glasses”) to send even the most hardened hipster-hater to the local pawn shop. No, it’s not a perfect Beasties record—Santigold’s over-utilized vocal work on “Don’t Play No game That I Can’t Win” threatens to kick the Beasties off their own track--, but Adrock, MCA, and Mike D have long passed the point in their career where they’re expected to reinvent the wheel with every new release. With Yauch’s recent battle with throat cancer, with all three members more concerned about their respective families than calling out sucker MCs… a new Beastie Boys album is a celebration of the past, of their strengths as vocalists and recording studio wizards.

Favorite moment? The propulsive hardcore throwback “Lee Majors Come Again”, a nice shot-out to their New York punk roots that seamlessly integrates the band’s past and present with grace and tongues planted firmly in cheek. The Beastie Boys have never had to apologize for their age because the tunes have never sagged; a quarter century after their debut, they’re still making noise that matters. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is another jewel in their hip-hop/alternative rock crown, one that should lure in new, younger listeners who were born too late to chug beer to “Fight For Your Right”, head bang to “Sabotage”, or do the robot to “Intergalatic” at a cousin’s wedding. 2011 was in dire need of a new Beastie Boys record, and this one fits the bill just nicely.

Sum-ology: Nothing revolutionary, but the new Beasties is a warm, nostalgic throwback to their early ‘90s sound—a welcome reminder of why the hip-hop icons are still one of our all-time favorites 25 years after their debut.

This guy sounds like he is more a fan.

[Brother McDuff]

I know I said earlier that I don't care for reviews.

But this is nice one:

http://www.ology.com/music/album-review-hot-sauce-committee-part-two-beastie-boys

There’s a scene in Jay-Z’s 2004 documentary Fade To Black where Mike D of the Beastie Boys goes to visit his old friend, producer Rick Rubin, who’s holed up in the studio recording “99 Problems” with the soon to retire rapper. “All these records I used to listen to—these guys are the creators of it,” Jay-Z proudly proclaims into camera, “They’re architects of what we do right now.” It’s a nice little moment that compounds with relevance when you stop to think exactly how long the Beastie Boys have been doing what they do. For a lot of people, 1986’s Licensed To Ill was their first taste of this new thing called “hip-hop”—a sonic whirlwind of heavy beats, punk rock attitude, and (most importantly) a collage-like sensibility that drew upon everything that came before it, from lo-fi gospel recordings to James Brown’s “Funky Drummer”. Creatively, anything was possible with this new music, and nobody epitomized the aesthetic potential quite like the Beastie Boys. From the encyclopedic pop culture smorgasbord of Paul’s Boutique to the alternative rocking, world music dabbling Hello Nasty, nothing ever seemed out of reach creatively for Mike Diamond and Adams Yauch and Horovitz.

Their first proper hip-hop album in seven years, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (in stores and online May 3rd) ditches the polished, sample-heavy hip-hop traditionalism of 2004’s To The 5 Boroughs and returns to the retro, borderline lo-fi pastiche of the Check Your Head/Ill Communication era—the new songs bang more than they bounce, with the “boys” dousing their remarkably still-fresh rhymes with more guitar and drum set clatter than your local Guitar Center. First single “Make Some Noise” flaunts its wonky organ riff and gritty live drumming gleefully, with MCA’s line “My rhymes age like wine as I get older” ringing especially true. “Nonstop Disco Powerpack” is a classic roundtable vocal exercise, with all three Beasties sounding just as fresh and snarky (“I take sucker rappers, I put ‘em through a strainer like macaroni, ‘cause the shit sounds cheesy!”) as ever.

Altogether, this might be the group’s most cohesive album… well, ever. Never before known to simply stick with one sound, here the Beasties hunker down stylistically, dishing out killer groove after killer groove doused with enough old school keyboards (“OK”), Nintendo sound effects (“Say It”), and antique Moog synthesizers (“Tadlock’s Glasses”) to send even the most hardened hipster-hater to the local pawn shop. No, it’s not a perfect Beasties record—Santigold’s over-utilized vocal work on “Don’t Play No game That I Can’t Win” threatens to kick the Beasties off their own track--, but Adrock, MCA, and Mike D have long passed the point in their career where they’re expected to reinvent the wheel with every new release. With Yauch’s recent battle with throat cancer, with all three members more concerned about their respective families than calling out sucker MCs… a new Beastie Boys album is a celebration of the past, of their strengths as vocalists and recording studio wizards.

Favorite moment? The propulsive hardcore throwback “Lee Majors Come Again”, a nice shot-out to their New York punk roots that seamlessly integrates the band’s past and present with grace and tongues planted firmly in cheek. The Beastie Boys have never had to apologize for their age because the tunes have never sagged; a quarter century after their debut, they’re still making noise that matters. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is another jewel in their hip-hop/alternative rock crown, one that should lure in new, younger listeners who were born too late to chug beer to “Fight For Your Right”, head bang to “Sabotage”, or do the robot to “Intergalatic” at a cousin’s wedding. 2011 was in dire need of a new Beastie Boys record, and this one fits the bill just nicely.

Sum-ology: Nothing revolutionary, but the new Beasties is a warm, nostalgic throwback to their early ‘90s sound—a welcome reminder of why the hip-hop icons are still one of our all-time favorites 25 years after their debut.

This guy sounds like he is more a fan.


damn, i was just gonna post this. i like where homeboy's head is at. (y)

[JoLovesMCA]

Nothing revolutionary,


What does that translate to? Nothing big but it's still a good album, nothing to write home about but it's still a good album. Words like that RUIN a review for me.

nice find though! (y)

[pm0ney]

Nothing is revolutionary these days. So, I wouldn't take that as a slight. The fact that people expect them to be revolutionary 25 years after their first album is a pretty huge compliment, I'd say.

[Brother McDuff]

What does that translate to? Nothing big but it's still a good album, nothing to write home about but it's still a good album. Words like that RUIN a review for me.

nice find though! (y)

it just means they're not reinventing the wheel or breaking any new ground. I think it's a justified statement. doesn't mean he's claiming it's not quality though.

[JoLovesMCA]

Nothing is revolutionary these days. So, I wouldn't take that as a slight. The fact that people expect them to be revolutionary 25 years after their first album is a pretty huge compliment, I'd say.

Yeah you're right but it's like geez man it's a great record, they did a huge filmio to market it and are so creative...what else do you want? I suppose if they flew in on a real spaceship that wouldn't be enough! Anyway I am just nit picking don't mind me. I hope there are more stellar reviews out there though. Would be nice. :o


it just means they're not reinventing the wheel or breaking any new ground. I think it's a justified statement. doesn't mean he's claiming it's not quality though.

Okay that puts it into better perspective for me, thanks guys. :o

[pm0ney]

I wouldn't worry about positive reviews. I'd say 80% will be positive.

[dave790]

it's got a clean sweep of 4 star reviews (out of five) in a bunch of uk mags, will try and get some of 'em up here.

[dave790]

Rolling Stone: 4/5

By Rob Sheffield
April 26, 2011

Could Beastie Boys possibly give less of a fuck about trying to sound young? In a word, no. As Ad-Rock proudly declares on their excellent new Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, "Oh, my God, just look at me/Grandpa been rapping since '83!" The Beasties revel in their older-than-old-school references ("Be kind, rewind") and cultural touchstones ("braggadocio" rhymes with "I'll make you sick like a Kenny Rogers Roaster"). Where they used to boast about rocking Adidas instead of Fila, now MCA has different footwear issues: "I don't wear Crocs, and I don't wear sandals/The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles."

That's the kick of Hot Sauce — the Beasties sound exactly like themselves, cutting loose without straining to fit anyone else's idea of relevance. Adam "MCA" Yauch, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz originally scheduled Hot Sauce for release in 2009, until the project was derailed by MCA's battle with cancer. Now cheekily retitled Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, it's their first album in seven years, unless you count 2007's stoner-funk instrumental throwaway, The Mix-Up. It's also a return to classic Beasties chutzpah: On Hot Sauce Committee, they're not sweating to impress anyone except one another.

Lead single "Make Some Noise" sets the tone with the group's feistiest and funniest groove since "Intergalactic" soundtracked the summer of 1998. (Have you listened to Hello Nasty lately? Even nuttier than you remember.) The Beasties ride vintage synths and cowbell, with MCA chanting, "We gonna party for the motherfucking right to fight!" Amid references to Rotary Connection and Ted Danson, Ad-Rock drops the best line: "Can't tell me nothing, can't tell me nada/Don't quote me now because I'm doing the Lambada."

The group's self-production has gained bounce since 2004's To the 5 Boroughs. They get guest shots from Nas ("Too Many Rappers") and Santigold (the reggae detour "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win"). The music is full of signature touches, from the punk drum solo in "Lee Majors Come Again" to the low-end electro funk of "Here's a Little Something for Ya." MCA sounds as gruff as ever in "Nonstop Disco Powerpack," giving it up to hip-hop pioneers like Rammellzee and K-Rob's "Beat Bop," Afrika Bambaataa and Spoonie Gee ("The one MC who you can't deny"), while both the bass line and the distortion-filter vocals echo Spoonie's 1980 classic "Spoonin Rap."

Beastie Boys were already old-school back when they were young-school, hyping an early-Eighties hip-hop revival on Paul's Boutique before the Eighties were even over. So it's no surprise that on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two they make no effort to accommodate or even acknowledge any of the latest hip-hop trends. Instead, we get the sound of master musicians in their comfort zone, doing everything their own way. Nobody would want to hear the Beasties try anything else.

edit: cheers sesame from the press thread!

also, for those who haven't seen, track by track run down from adam, adam and mike.
http://www.nme.com/news/beastie-boys/56320

[kaiser soze]

Nothing is revolutionary these days. So, I wouldn't take that as a slight. The fact that people expect them to be revolutionary 25 years after their first album is a pretty huge compliment, I'd say.

revolutionary or nostaligic?

this album is undoubtedly the latter (y)

[Matchstikk]

also, for those who haven't seen, track by track run down from adam, adam and mike.
http://www.nme.com/news/beastie-boys/56320

HOLY SHIZNIT! This is awesome. Mad props for linking this!!!!

[dave790]

http://www.nme.com/nme-video/beastie-boys---new-album/914370478001

they changed it, for some reason only known to NME.

[mca64]

http://www.metacritic.com/music/to-the-5-boroughs/critic-reviews

average of some 25 reviews for tt5b

will hscp2 get better reviews?

[Kid Presentable]

http://www.metacritic.com/music/to-the-5-boroughs/critic-reviews

average of some 25 reviews for tt5b

will hscp2 get better reviews?

You sparked a thought: TT5B got 5 stars from Rolling Stone, who gave this album 4 Stars (cheers Sesamehole). Not right.

[Darko]

You sparked a thought: TT5B got 5 stars from Rolling Stone, who gave this album 4 Stars (cheers Sesamehole). Not right.

I think even Rolling Stone would now admit that a 5/5 for TT5B is insane.

[JoLovesMCA]

I love the RollingSone review. They totally “get” that the Beasties are doing it their own way as they’ve always been. I am however gonna have to tell that writer that it’s not HOROWITZ it’s HOROVITZ! You don’t spell KING AD-Rock’s NAME wrong!

[willis drummond]

http://www.craveonline.com/music/reviews/166763-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2

Crave giving much love to the record...

[Drusyc]

I love the RollingSone review. They totally “get” that the Beasties are doing it their own way as they’ve always been. I am however gonna have to tell that writer that it’s not HOROWITZ it’s HOROVITZ! You don’t spell KING AD-Rock’s NAME wrong!

I can't even count the number of times I've seen his name spelled wrong (n)

I even remember seeing not too long ago on rotten tomatoes, some movie directed by a "Adam Horowitz" and listed "Awesome, I... Shot That!" in his resume as an actor.

On topic; The Rolling Stone review is pretty much spot-on.

[cj hood]

not only is HSC2 a solid beastie boys record, its a solid hiphop record as well....i'm curious to see the reaction it'll get from the hiphop community (legit sources of course).

[mathcart]

http://www.nme.com/nme-video/beastie-boys---new-album/914370478001

they changed it, for some reason only known to NME.


That was awesome!

(y)

[JoLovesMCA]

Kinda hard to pay attention to that clip when they all look so smoking hot!!!

[mathcart]

http://www.craveonline.com/music/reviews/166763-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2

Crave giving much love to the record...



This review is spot on IMHO...
More or less exactly how I feel!


(y)

[Guy Incognito]

I love the RollingSone review. They totally “get” that the Beasties are doing it their own way as they’ve always been. I am however gonna have to tell that writer that it’s not HOROWITZ it’s HOROVITZ! You don’t spell KING AD-Rock’s NAME wrong!

in the spirit of new album, tell the writer its horovitz and he dont know shvitz.

[JoLovesMCA]

in the spirit of new album, tell the writer its horovitz and he dont know shvitz.

I will do it. Seriously I will lol. :cool:

[dave790]

Gotta love that Crave review. It's gushing, but appropriately so. Speaking of reviews, I think the NME one of TT5B is the one I've always agreed with most (it must seem like I love NME atm - I don't - http://www.nme.com/reviews/beastie-boys/7448). It pisses me off when people say 'oh the Beasties production skills have improved since TT5B.' They knew what they were doing with that album, the stripped down nature was deliberate. Furthermore, they've had at least a hand in production since day one.

[redandwhiterob]

it's got a clean sweep of 4 star reviews (out of five) in a bunch of uk mags, will try and get some of 'em up here.

What mags you been looking at mate, hoping to pick up a few issues come end of the month

[dave790]

i've not seen them myself, but apparently Q, uncut and mojo. it was on one of those review collection sites, but they all said 'in print only' (as in they're not allowed to publish the reviews online yet). will have a browse tomorrow.

[JoLovesMCA]

Gotta love that Crave review. It's gushing, but appropriately so. Speaking of reviews, I think the NME one of TT5B is the one I've always agreed with most (it must seem like I love NME atm - I don't - http://www.nme.com/reviews/beastie-boys/7448). It pisses me off when people say 'oh the Beasties production skills have improved since TT5B.' They knew what they were doing with that album, the stripped down nature was deliberate. Furthermore, they've had at least a hand in production since day one.

I don’t see how anybody can say they didn’t know what they were doing with TT5B after their long ass history of amazing music, beats, production. As much as I missed the more musical aspect I feel they had a message they wanted to get out and at that time it was appropriate. They are artists and it was their expression, how they were feeling etc.. They still managed to release some really great hip hop songs so those reviewers don’t know what they are talking about.

I would love to pick up some magazines myself. I looked last night but didn’t see anything yet.

[Drusyc]

This one isn't much of a review, but I stumbled on it just now.

http://stereogum.com/692562/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2-premature-evaluation/franchises/premature-evaluation/

[JoLovesMCA]

I can't even count the number of times I've seen his name spelled wrong (n)

I even remember seeing not too long ago on rotten tomatoes, some movie directed by a "Adam Horowitz" and listed "Awesome, I... Shot That!" in his resume as an actor.

On topic; The Rolling Stone review is pretty much spot-on.

I know what that dude looks like, he is a bulky guy with glasses. Kinda nerdy looking! He always pops up when I search for Horovitz photos. Also I noticed that a lot of photos have Horovitz listed as YAUCH too. Crazy ass shit lol.

[camo]

4/5 in uk mag 'Loaded'

[pm0ney]

Entertainment Weekly:

Beastie Boys
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
(Capitol)
In the ’80s and ’90s, hip-hop’s premier party advocates built a cache of seemingly infinite cool. But for the past 10 years, the Beastie Boys have been in limbo, turning out sleepy albums like 2004′s To the 5 Boroughs and dealing with Adam “MCA” Yauch’s cancer diagnosis. The spark of classic joints like 1992′s Check Your Head seemed like it might be gone forever.
Thankfully, Yauch is now in remission, and the group’s eighth album gets back to the business of being, to paraphrase their ’98 classic “Body Movin’,” sweet like a nice bonbon. Although the trio is now collectively 135 years old, the Boys don’t spend Sauce pondering their own mortality. They’re too busy laying down noisy, minimalist funk (the glitchy “OK”), rhyming former NBA star John Salley with Vogue editor André Leon Talley (“Here’s a Little Something for Ya”), and crafting a perfect reggae-kissed summer jam (the Santigold collab “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”). And in case you forgot, the Boys are happy to remind you that there is a considerable amount of lyrical diesel left in their tank (“I’m running wild like rats in the Taco Bell,” declares Ad-Rock on “Long Burn the Fire”).
The Beasties get a lot out of a little, as most of these tracks are built around little more than 808 drum loops, some guitars, a couple of keyboard effects and a ton of reverb wrapping their voices in a sea of static. First single “Make Some Noise” forces a skronking organ groove to tap dance on some snare drums to groin-friendly effect, while “Say It” is the soundtrack to a robot dance battle.
There are nods to hardcore (the driving “Lee Majors Come Again”) and their sample-heavy work with the Dust Brothers (the chaotic, punchline-heavy “Crazy Ass S—”). Even the usually album-killing lounge-lizard instrumental (which took up the entirety of 2007′s The Mix-Up) sounds fresh and sharp: Tadlock’s Glasses” packs a surprisingly potent rhythmic undertow. And whatever the Boys are feeling, it’s apparently contagious; they manage to make Nas sound as engaged as he’s been in years on “Too Many Rappers.”
Hot Sauce is a lot like Daniel Craig’s übercool James Bond—another stripped-down return to a franchise’s best virtues after a decade or so of wandering the desert. It took a little time, but the Boys are back with a license to ill.

A–

[Guy Incognito]

^ thats the best review i have read so far. skronkin(y)

[dave790]

yeah, top review, and daniel craig is a great bond!

[Brother McDuff]

^

not bad, i guess, but it's pretty hard to muster up much respect for a review that can't even get it's fucking song names correct (Tadlock's Glasses? instrumental?). weak journalism. how hard is it to pinpoint what track you're referencing when you're getting paid thousands of dollars to write a couple of paragraphs? apparently it's asking alot. (n)

[brooklyndust]

^

not bad, i guess, but it's pretty hard to muster up much respect for a review that can't even get it's fucking song names correct (Tadlock's Glasses? instrumental?). weak journalism. how hard is it to pinpoint what track you're referencing when you're getting paid thousands of dollars to write a couple of paragraphs? apparently it's asking alot. (n)

Agreed, one reviewer said that tt5b came out in 2002.

[Jiberish]

^

not bad, i guess, but it's pretty hard to muster up much respect for a review that can't even get it's fucking song names correct (Tadlock's Glasses? instrumental?). weak journalism. how hard is it to pinpoint what track you're referencing when you're getting paid thousands of dollars to write a couple of paragraphs? apparently it's asking alot. (n)

not to mention he credits Ad-Rock for a Mike D line... BUT, he throws out the word Skronking. so he wins some cred back.

[JoLovesMCA]

They give Yauch some major praise on this one which me likes. :D

The new Beastie Boys (http://www.popcrush.com/tags/beastie-boys) album ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ finds them filtering the “everything-including-the kitchen-sink” method — working in classic albums such as ‘Check Your Head’ and ‘Ill Communication’ through the more organic, self-played funk sounds of their all-instrumental 2007 album ‘The Mix-Up.’ Yes, we know the band played their own music on those previous albums, but they also featured a healthy dose of samples. This time out, it sounds like a huge majority of the notes came from the fingers of the trio and their long-time keyboardist Money Mark. It’s definitely a return to more comfortable ground from the band’s most recent rap album, 2004′s underrated, sample-reliant old-school ‘To the 5 Boroughs.’


If the Beasties’ typically tongue-in-cheek press releases can be taken literally, it seems this album contains the bulk of what was originally going to be 2009′s ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part One,’ which was postponed (http://popcrush.com/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2-details/) when Adam Yauch (MCA) was diagnosed with cancer.
Thankfully, he’s well on the mend now, and his bass prowls and crawls all over this album. Check out the ripping, woozy line he throws down at around the 2:44 mark of ‘Too Many Rappers’ (a team-up with Nas that was the album’s first single), or the way he darts in and out and generally rattles your teeth in ‘Nonstop Disco Powerpack.’


It seems that the vocal-less touring the band did in support of ‘The Mix-Up’ has made them an even tighter and more flexible musical unit. Thankfully they don’t stick to the lightweight jazz-funk palette of that album. Instead, they roam all over their previously established world of influences — from hip-hop throwbacks to punk-influenced sing-a-longs in the P-Funk referencing ‘Funky Donkey,’ and even the looping, Santogold-assisted reggae of ‘Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win.’


The current single, ‘Make Some Noise (http://popcrush.com/beastie-boys-make-some-noise/),’ is perhaps their most obvious hit since ‘Intergalactic,’ but really the victory here is how fresh the Beastie Boys sound — making yet another trip through their grab-bag of tricks on an undeniably strong front-to-back album. Some people feared 1998′s ‘Hello Nasty’ might be their last classic release, but it’s clear now the band was merely exploring on the last two projects and that what they brought was worth the wait.

Rating: 8/10

PopCrush (http://popcrush.com/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two-album/)

[facedownfall]

Not sure if this was already posted..if so please delete it.

from SF Weekly (http://http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/04/get_bent_with_the_beasties_hot.php)

Behind the buzz: There are weeks when the choice for audio bongload is obvious, and this is one such. The censor-approved "clean" version of the new Beasties' album was prematurely released onto the Internet, leaving our creaky (and cranky) trio to stream the explicit version in its entirety. Reviewers are treating this release like a boardroom statement from yet another Reagan Age corporate enterprise; something worth heeding if not particularly comprehensible on its merits. Release delayed from 2009 due to MCA's battle with cancer, this is the Beasties coming to grips with an enviable legacy by creating more of the same.


Today's dope: The last remaining flakes of last week's DJ Short's Blueberry Kush, hoarded and toked for this august occasion.

For those about to rock: As worthy as anything off their 2005 Best Of, "Make Some Noise" is vintage call-n-response rawkus from Ad-Rock, MCA, and Ad-Rock going through their paces with all the anarchic assurance of the Marx Brothers clambering out of each others' pockets. "Nonstop Disco Powerpack" is a chimes-at-midnight hip-hop reverie, its smoky and muted after-hours vibe yet another example of the Boys' much-admired skill at shifting mood and tempo. Despite geezer references like "Be kind, rewind," "OK" is au courant as fuck, its snaky New Wave beats dialing the frantic back up. "Too Many Rappers [New Reactionaries]" is an archly old-school (if not hyper-Tory) fulmination on the state of hip-hop, with its bulging cargo of rats and hacks, with guest star Nas appearing for the prosecution. "Say It" is full-on furioso rant in the doomy Ill Communication manner. "Don't Play No Game I Can't Win" drops Dylan references and reggae beats, with Santigold contributing to this series of epically jazzy funkscapes. "Long Burn the Fire" is another self-inflating helium parable with asides like "I got tiger's claws that will scratch your dick" tossed off like wisecracks out of Bill Burroughs. "Funky Donkey" and "Tadlock's Glasses" wouldn't sound out of place on any of their post-Paul's Boutique albums.


We salute you: The one-two punch of a crashing feedback rocker like "Lee Majors Come Again" and the slow-burning deep funk of "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" ought to be enough to table any questions of how "relevant" these guys still are. Music this accomplished so far into the Boys' bullshitting and signifying career indicates the distance they've yet to go- all the way to gangsta geezerdom on the Straw Gat circuit.

Psychoactive verdict: Worth the saving the last few grains of your choicest.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I posted some corrections in the comments on that page.

[Brother McDuff]

i like how not only are most reviews positive, but more than one have expressed the notion that the bboys still have more relevant music to make in the future.


and how come so many reviews refer to TT5B as a heavily sample-based record? i mean, it had it's share, but it certainly wasn't the productions defining characteristic either.

[Micodin]

The Skinny

This material has been in existence for pushing on two years now and was originally to be released as Part 1, which will now be released at some unknown later date. Confused? Well, it’s nowhere near the head-trip those expecting another Hello Nasty are bound to experience. Rather than pushing forwards, the Boys have spun the hands of time anticlockwise to create a truly old-school hip-hop record, a photo album of everything that made these Brooklynites into genre-straddling hotshots.

There are still a few songs that meet the criteria of Beasties single-dom, like the bluntly forthright Nas collaboration Too Many Rappers and the dubby ragga of Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win, but the deeply sinister Say It sounds too much like a DJ Krush mashup to really find a niche in the running order. Maybe Hot Sauce... isn’t the album to gain them any new fans, but it’ll surely prompt a few jaded souls back to the fold. [David Bowes]

[Micodin]

Turn The Dial Flick The Switch

The bomb has finally dropped… and the new Beastie Boys album is nearly upon us.

This album has been brewing for at least 3 years This album was originally going to be released as The Hot Sauce Committee Part 1 and set for release September 2009 (with singles ‘Lee Majors Come again’ and ‘too Many Rapper’ already released that year) However when Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with cancer the band pulled back a bit.

H.S.C. pt2 is the first full sounding B.B. album since ‘To the 5 Boroughs’ was released 2004 with the Grammy award winning instrumental album ‘the Mix-up’ in the gap.

And so May 2, 2011 the world will once again taste Beastie Boys… and they are back with their full bag of tricks.

From the very first funky notes of H.S.C. pt2 you know that you’re in for something special with ‘Make Some Noise’ a classic Beastie Boys sound.

Something that makes the Beastie Boys such a special group is they are able to push forward by constantly looking back or as NME said in 2004 ” the Beasties are re-examining hip hop what it was, what it is, what it can be” and this is highlighted by the very next track ‘Non-Stop’ with the kind of bass line that Bomb the Bass used for their 1994 track Bug Powder Dust.

Before you know it you’re at the track ‘Too Many Rapper’ featuring rapper Nas… with that familiar ‘growl’ pulsating through the whole track.

It’s really easy to be caught up in the this album… it’s so familiar yet so new, that real balance between making something both sweet and sour and hot – all at the same time. Just as you’re about to get complacent at what the Beastie Boys have laid out in front of you as you soak in that groove, and they chuck a spanner in the works… and they don’t rock harder… they break it down with some dub styles… laying down a fresh, clean, smooth summer sound with the track ‘Don’t play no game’.

Beastie Boys continue to look back as they seem to tip their hats to the Sugarhill gangs 1970′s funk infused rap with the track ‘Funky Donkey’ but they also seem to take a look back at their own albums with the intro for ‘Long Burn the Fire’ sounding like it should be on ‘the Mix-up’ and then of course ‘Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament’ which is a fully instrumental song bringing back a new softer dubbier side of the group.

Finishing the album with the track ‘Crazy Ass Sh*t’ is a stroke of genius – especially since it was the most ‘normal’ Beastie Boys track on the whole album.

This is an album to get… it fulfills all your hip-hop dreams… the fun and the groove of groups like The Sugarhill gang, Run DMC, De La Soul and Jurassic 5… but this album pushes hip-hop to some place new.

For those who love the Beastie Boys but would like to play them round your kids they have also released a ‘clean version’ with none of that fowl language that can make some groups sound like they need a thesaurus.

8/10

[JoLovesMCA]

Turn The Dial Flick The Switch

This is an album to get… it fulfills all your hip-hop dreams… the fun and the groove of groups like The Sugarhill gang, Run DMC, De La Soul and Jurassic 5… but this album pushes hip-hop to some place new.

For those who love the Beastie Boys but would like to play them round your kids they have also released a ‘clean version’ with none of that fowl language that can make some groups sound like they need a thesaurus.

8/10

Yes yes yes, loving this one! Reviewers like this seem to really understand the Beastie Boys. I like when somebody actually does their homework or has knowledge about the topic they are writing about!


i like how not only are most reviews positive, but more than one have expressed the notion that the bboys still have more relevant music to make in the future.


Beasties Boys, Past, Present and Future of Hip Hop. Nuff SAID! Proof is in the pudding and the pudding’s in their pants!

[JohnnyChavello]

Not that high profile, but this guy gets it about exactly right:


Returning from a seven-year hiatus on new material with a masterpiece B-Boy Bouillabaisse (http://www.craveonline.com/music/reviews/166763-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2)

By Iann Robinson Apr 26th, 2011

When Hip Hop was young, it was broadcast by any means necessary. As the musical and cultural revolution grew beyond the first DJ scratches, the music began to find a platform in the form of old Casio keyboards, crapped out beat machines, broken microphones, wherever it could find a source to display it’s power. Over the years, as Hip Hop has become a business, the entire idea of a once struggling music finding artistic freedom in whatever was at hand, has fallen by the wayside. Now there are studios, pro-tools, samplers and producers getting paid millions to make a rapper sound like an MC.


Enter the Hip Hop Tardis and travel back in time with Hot Sauce Committee Part 2, the new joint from the Beastie Boys. After a seven-year hiatus from new material, New York’s original white rap crew has taken a huge step forward in their career by taking three or four steps back musically. I don’t mean that the creative juices flow stale, but that the Beastie Boys have gone so far back into the old school that Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 could be called preschool.


This is an album of mix and matched beats, bass lines and assorted sounds all brewed together into a B-Boy Bouillabaisse for a new age. The quality of the vocals stretch from over biased and disturbing to so slow you’d be sure they were recorded on a two-inch tape that was caught up in the reel to reel. Hot Sauce Committee bases it’s sound in the granite of old 12” singles from the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Caz, Grandmaster Flash or any of the first wave of Hip Hop artists.


Interestingly Hot Sauce Committee Part Two opens up with the only easily identifiable single on the album. “Make Some Noise” is classic Beastie Boys in the “B-Boys Making With The Freak Freak” and “Skillz To Pay The Bills” style. The release of the single and the star studded video had many thinking that the Beasties might have lost their creative way, that they just wanted to cash in on their legend. By the second tune “Nonstop Disco Powerpack” that whole idea is defunct. The old school kicks in here but from an age few dare to go back to. Most rappers that attempt to add an old school flavor snatch it from the mid to late eighties. “Nonstop Disco Powerpack” goes back to the late seventies or early eighties sound. A straight drum loop with no bells or whistles. When the boys drop in the vocals, the old school is open for classes.


“OK” is the first real dip into how bizarre Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is going to get. The music comes off like something stolen from an early electronic pop band fueled by love for rap. Remember tunes like “Yo Little Brother” or “Rumors”? “OK” is the Beasties dropping their lyrical Jedi back flips all over that kind of musical structure. “Too Many Rappers” is a full on attack towards the commercialization of Hip Hop but with a funky head-bop drum line and spaceship sound effects. The addition of Nas is a great touch as he demonstrates not only his flow but also the respect the Hip Hop community at large has for the Beastie Boys.


Then, suddenly, the album gets real. Right as your bopping and thinking the feel of Hot Sauce Committee is locked into your synapses, the Beastie Boy flip the script. Starting with “Say It”, the acid kicks in and suddenly Hip Hop has kaleidoscope eyes. “Say It” is performed through a curtain of noise and over biased microphones. There’s also what might be a guitar or at least guitar feedback. Imagine the Beastie Boys rapping over Throbbing Gristle. “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” turns on another dime and drops a thick reggae flavor into the Beastie’s sauce. Knowing how much they love the Bad Brains you could argue this is somehow a nod to them that uses the dub style the legendary hardcore group mixed into their sound.


The last half of Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is more stream of consciousness than anything the Beastie Boys have done before. “Long Burn The Fire” posses the same noisy structure and oddity of sound that “Say It” has, while “Funky Donkey” is a short burst of freestyle rhymes over a James Brown funk with shades of Asian percussion. “Tadlock’s Glasses” and “Lee Majors Come Again” are frenetic bursts of noise mixed with drum loops and guitars. If Hot Sauce Committee Part Two was a musical nervous breakdown, these two songs would be the last rattling of sense as it was choked from the brain.


Hot Sauce Committee Part Two could be the same ahead-of-the-curve album that Hello Nasty was. These days Hip Hop is falling apart. Bogged down by pop singer hooks and bloated self-aware lyrics about how hard it is to be rich or be a gangsta or whatever. Eventually musical entropy will set in and the genre will be forced to breakdown to survive. It’s the same as the punk movement of the early seventies when rock had become overloaded with arena rock and needed to fall to be rebuilt. Hip Hop has only grown since its inception and that kind of growth will eventually lead to collapse.


Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is where Hip Hop will be going when the bloat is drained and artists go back to the origin in order to create the future. It may not happen for a few years, but it will and when it does people will point to Hot Sauce Committee Part Two as a pivotal point in the history of Hip Hop. The only melancholy part of this album is the current status of the group itself. Adam Yauch (aka MCA) has been plagued with health issues, which has led to many speculating that this album could be the swan song of the Beastie Boys career. If it is it would be just like the Beastie Boys to walk away from the party and leaving behind a blueprint album that will drive the genre into it’s next phase.


The Beastie Boys have made an intelligent dance record that’s littered with experimentation, artistic freedom and true vision. This is an album that will drive you to want to create music or just bust out some linoleum for a breaking battle at the Roxy. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is proof positive that this is the Beastie Boys’ world, we just live in it.



CRAVEONLINE RATING 10 OUT OF 10

[dave790]

From The Independent UK newspaper: fuckers! though i like the subtle TT5B praise...


Album: Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (Capitol)
(Rated 2/ 5 )

Reviewed by Andy Gill
Friday, 29 April 2011

If Hot Sauce Committee Part Two has a slightly confusing, unfocused manner, that's hardly surprising.

Originally scheduled for a 2009 release, the original Hot Sauce Committee was put on hold due to Adam (MCA) Yauch's sudden cancer scare (since successfully treated, thankfully). In the interim, more tracks were completed, hence the additional Part Two, which in typical Beastie style received an earlier release date than the original. Except that, further muddying the waters, lengthy re-sequencing sessions somehow resulted in all of the additional Part Two tracks being replaced by all of the original album's. Which leaves us, if I'm following this correctly, with the original Hot Sauce Committee album under an anachronistic title, to be followed by another. Perhaps.

Whatever, it's a weird one, neither fish nor fowl, but unmistakably Beastie. Effectively, it's a sort of halfway-house combination of their old-school sample-collage stuff and the played grooves they got into around the time of Check Your Head. The latter style is most single-mindedly represented by "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament", an itchy instrumental shuffle of low-riding bass and fatback keyboard funk; but more often, the elements are combined in arrangements in which clarity of fidelity is clearly not the most pressing matter. "Say It" is a rough scratch'n'breakbeat groove whose grainy sound incorporates creaking whines and yawns of feedback, while "Tadlock's Glasses" features a bleeptastic synth arrangement akin to Raymond Scott in outer-space mode. Elsewhere, "Lee Majors Come Again" is a straight heavy-rock number, while the opening "Make Some Noise" incorporates the nastiest of wah-wah keyboard buzz-riffs as the Boys re-jig their own history: "We got a party on the left, a party on the right, we got a party in the middle, got a right to fight".

Sadly, this is about as deep as their politics go on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the more articulate sentiments of To the 5 Boroughs having been largely abandoned in favour of fairly standard bring-the-noise, boast'n'diss hip-hop pablum. Which is fine if you want to continue the ancient rap throwdown culture of "Too Many Rappers", or are impressed by self-aggrandising blather like "I got shark's teeth so I can bite your head off, I got tiger's claws that's scratch you dead, I got moves like a dragon...", etc. Otherwise, the album's attractions are mostly instrumental, and often spoilt by the whining vocal interjections.

It's certainly telling that by far the best line on the album is borrowed from Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" – but then, it would be, if you're fool enough to set up the comparison in the first place. As it happens, the success of the track in question – a triumphant dub skank called "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" – may be primarily down to the trio's collaboration with Santogold, who brings her own unique charm to the party and shows everyone up.

DOWNLOAD THIS Don't Play No Game That I Can' t Win; Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament; Say It



From The Guardian UK newspaper: right on!




Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two - review
(Capitol)
4/5

Dave Simpson
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 April 2011 22.40 BST

Now in their fourth decade of working together, the Beasties' eighth studio album revisits their old-skool roots. The tracks urge us to Make Some Noise, threaten to "rock da house" and even suggest a "party on the left." However, their wit and invention transforms such tired cliches into their freshest offering in years. A tapestry-cum-rollercoaster of sound, the confusingly titled album (Part One remains unreleased) mixes obscure samples, live playing, electronic squiggles and hardcore thrash. You're as likely to encounter cries of "Mayhem, mayhem!" and air horns as old nursery rhyme phrase "Knick knack paddy whack" featuring in a rap. The mere two guests have been selected to actually add something rather than to up the celeb appeal. The blistering Too Many Rappers finds Nas paying homage to his Beastie forefathers; Santigold gives Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win some instantly infectious pop reggae sunshine. However, the Boys' trademark nerdy raps are as inimitable as ever.

[dust monkey]

....while the opening "Make Some Noise" incorporates the nastiest of wah-wah keyboard buzz-riffs as the Boys re-jig their own history: "We got a party on the left, a party on the right, we got a party in the middle, got a right to fight".


Ughhh close Andy Gill (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two-capitol-2276139.html) but no cigar.

[JoLovesMCA]

I read that Andy review the other day and was tempted to make a smart ass comment but I let it go. :rolleyes:

I'd say most of the reviewers are really favoring the album so i am not worried about the less than 1% who don't get it!

[Kid Presentable]

The Beastie Boys have made an intelligent dance record that’s littered with experimentation, artistic freedom and true vision. This is an album that will drive you to want to create music or just bust out some linoleum for a breaking battle at the Roxy. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is proof positive that this is the Beastie Boys’ world, we just live in it.

From the review posted by JohnnyChavello. Excellent para.

[dave790]

NME review. 7/10.
http://www.nme.com/reviews/beastie-boys--2/12025

It's one of those annoying reviews that clearly wants to make a particular point from the outset and spends about 3/4's of the words getting there.



Album Review: Beastie Boys - 'Hot Sauce Committee Part Two'
The nutty professors still have something to offer
April 27, 2011

Much like the squelchy, retro-cop-show-theme waddle that welcomes in ‘Make Some Noise’ – the first song on the trio’s first rap release since 2004’s ‘To The 5 Boroughs’ – talking about the Beastie Boys in 2011 feels faintly ridiculous. Formed in 1979, the band have now existed for over three decades, which makes pondering their new record feel a bit like it might have done waxing lyrical about the Charleston after the advent of rock’n’roll.

After all that time, and eight studio releases in, it must be perplexing being a Beastie Boy. For one thing you’re not a boy, you’re a 45-year-old man wearing cargo shorts and shouting. For another, your connection to the zeitgeist – something the NYC group were so in tune with between 1994’s ‘Ill Communication’ and 1998’s ‘Hello Nasty’ it might as well have been the moniker of a guesting Germanic MC – is now so distant, it’s hard not to see the band like Greek mythology’s Tantalus, forever reaching for something beyond them. Only shouting at the grapes wearing cargo shorts, obviously.

Still, don’t tell the Prohibition, but as far as dances go, the Charleston is a good one – better than that strange thing the singer from The Drums does, anyway. Likewise, perhaps illustrated by the poor Ivor Novello haul of your local maternity ward, youth has rarely been the sole prerequisite for the creation of good music. Be in no doubt, ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ contains much that is good music: the ever-Herculean wordplay of Nas helps make ‘Too Many Rappers’ one of the band’s most fun singles ever. Elsewhere, ‘Here’s A Little Something For Ya’ contains the never unfunny couplet, “If you’re a little chilly/I’m gonna getcha a shawl-a”.

In fact, while veterans they may now be, there are times when the Beastie Boys’ new record sounds so sprightly (‘Nonstop Disco Powerpack’), boisterous (‘Say It’) and playful (‘Tadlock’s Glasses’) – so diametrically opposed to the weary existential angst that defines the modern music era – that it’s a joy to listen to. Yet in doing so, it’s hard to shake the suspicion that the record’s appeal is largely nostalgic. Stylistically, its robo-rock rhythms and modulator-ed sloganeering owes a debt to the doofus party pop of the band’s 13-year-old ‘Hello Nasty’. Lyrically, it deals with such timely concerns as the career of the actor Lee Majors, star of cult ’70s TV hit The Six Million Dollar Man.

Nostalgia, as anyone who ever read the band’s early ’90s in-house magazine Grand Royal will be aware (sample features: ‘In Praise Of Bruce Lee’, ‘Mulling Over The Mullet’, Mike D interviews retired NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), has long been the band’s stock-in-trade. Yet ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ begs the question: can you be nostalgic about nostalgia? Perhaps it’s the record’s delayed release – some tracks were recorded as long ago as 2008, while Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch’s cancer hindered a scheduled September release last year – but ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ sounds like a record out of step with the world.

This in itself isn’t a problem; such has been the band’s skill at constructing their own worlds from the debris of retro reference points it’s long formed part of their appeal. The problem is, where such a kingdom of kitsch was once enticing, it doesn’t feel as much so as the strange new ones created by, say, Odd Future, even MIA. The Beastie Boys’ world is still a pretty fun place to visit, but it’s little different to doing wheelies on the wheelchairs down at your local retirement home. Similarly, ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ is undoubtedly a good record. It’s just that in the Beasties’ case, merely being good doesn’t seem, well, y’know, good enough.

James McMahon

7/10

And a short one from Rocksound magazine:

BEASTIE BOYS - HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE: PART TWO
It's finally here and a must-have for all fans. Hurrah!

Posted Saturday, 30 April 2011 in Album Reviews, Beastie Boys

Rating: 7

It might sound like a sequel but were it not for Adam Yauch’s cancer diagnosis, the Beasties would have released ‘Hot Sauce Committee: Part Two’ some 18 months back. Now that they’ve finally given up the goods, it’s easy to understand why they decided to go with what they already had because their eighth album is rooted firmly in hip-hop’s old-school. The New Yorkers do occasionally stray from the yappy rhymes / big-beats blueprint during tracks like the dub-reggae tinged Santigold collaboration ‘Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win’ but for the most part, ‘Hot Sauce Committee: Part Two’ is vintage, if not exactly essential, stuff.
Hardeep Phull

[dave790]

Oh and one from an Aussie paper...



Review: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two by Beastie Boys (EMI)

Neala Johnson From: National Features April 28, 2011 12:00AM

OF ALL the sounds Beastie Boys have messed with over the years - rap, Latin, hardcore, lounge - they've never sounded so sun-kissed and Caribbean as they do on Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win.

It's a song Mike D says they struggled with, only finding the right vibe when guest vocalist Santigold joined them in the studio.

The struggle was worth it 16 times over on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two - this is the Beasties Boys at their most vital, engaged and surprising. The hair may be greying, but these Boys still have fresh noise to make.

While drum loops remain a staple, Hot Sauce Committee is also the most organic mix yet of their hip-hop and musician sides. The result? From staggering grooves to jams that could soundtrack the future robot wars, don't expect the expected here.

Even in the minimal Nonstop Disco Powerback, which sets the trio up for a classic one-after-the-other rap showcase, they change things up by dunking their vocals in reverb (clearly a new favourite toy) as Mike D drops some French and Ad-Rock tries new rhythms ("I flow like the water out your toilet bowl").

And have the guys who rocked for a Free Tibet still got something to say?

You bet. From Ad-Rock's stupidly brilliant one-liners ("Oh my god, just look at me, grandpa been rappin' since '83!"), to the blatantly-titled Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament, to the elder-statesmen commentary of Too Many Rappers (guest rapper Nas proclaiming, "Too many rappers and there's still not enough MCs").

MCA tells pretenders to check themselves on Long Burn the Fire - "Shoot venom from my eyes when it's time to get rough," he growls. A few years back, it may have sounded like past-it posturing. On Hot Sauce Committee Part Two it's a genuine warning. Beastie Boys are sizzling.

Star rating: * * * *

[pesto pizza]

NME review. 7/10.
http://www.nme.com/reviews/beastie-boys--2/12025

It's one of those annoying reviews that clearly wants to make a particular point from the outset and spends about 3/4's of the words getting there.

beastie boys have NEVER worn cargo shorts (and there would be nothing wrong with a 45 year old wearing cargo shorts anyway).in fact they very much dress their age unlike eminem.

[easy 3]

'All the critics, you can hang them, I'll hold the rope!' - Chuck D

Cargo shorts!?

What a cock-stain.

[dave790]

beastie boys have NEVER worn cargo shorts (and there would be nothing wrong with a 45 year old wearing cargo shorts anyway).in fact they very much dress their age unlike eminem.

yeah, that reviewer is a fucking idiot.

[Brother McDuff]

That enemy, I mean 'NME' reviewer is a total weiner. what's wrong with nostalgia anyhow? it's a fondness for a reason.

[Monsieur Decuts]

People needn't forget that there are 45 year old rap fans who still feel for their golden era, and can't really relate to the Odd Futures or L'il whomevers of today and there is NOTHING wrong with that..

Respect the OGs suckas.

[dave790]

pretty good review. i am one of the few who agrees with the TMR sentiments!

http://uk.music.ign.com/articles/116/1165264p1.html



Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 Review
Trio's latest is hot like fire, but there is ultimately a lot of sizzle with little steak.
US, April 29, 2011

by Chad Grischow

Hitting shelves nearly two years after, lead single, "Too Many Rappers", Beastie Boys eighth studio album is finally ready for consumption. The hip-hop pioneers prove that the time off has not dampened their desire to explore new territory on this eclectic album.

The sticky bass line and grinding organ bouncing through an energetic beat works great on "Make Some Noise", as the distorted funk vibe meshes well with their scathing microphone distortion and baton rapping style. Originally featured in DJ Hero, the trio pay respect to the band's punk roots on their garage rock shout-out to The Six Million Dollar Man on "Lee Majors Come Again", as thick, chugging riffs and a buzzing bass line erupt over a tensed-up beat before the song takes its foot off the gas for a sloshing synth-pop conclusion.

Their hazy, dub influenced "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win", with Santigold in tow, is among the album's best surprises. The chirping guitars and burping horns of the reggae flavored tune leave you wondering what they cook up next. In contrast, the overstuffed electronic effects of "Say It" make the guitars toiling in the distance feel like an unnecessary afterthought on the cluttered song. Still, the New Wave keyboard melody and gritty riffs forcing their way through a catchy beat "OK" and fuzzed-out, underwater vibe of "Tadlock's Glasses" leave you admiring their sonic ambition.

The only complaint is their retreat from the politically charged lyrics of To The 5 Burroughs in favor of songs that spend the majority of their time aiming at anonymous inferior rappers. The hollow, Sugar Hill Gang inspired glass bottle beat and a warm bass groove leave plenty of room for the trio's raps to reverberate around the room on sparse, smack talking treasure "Nonstop Disco Powerpack", "Your style is cheap, boy, just like a dutch / You know you're not smoking on the microphone much".

Clucking cowbell and a grubby evaporating bass line over a classic hip-hop beat on "Here's A Little Something For Ya" and the blown-speaker vocals and beat jumping between old-school rap and reggae on "Crazy Ass Sh*t" make the braggart lyrics feel charming, "Rock non-stop in New York City / We on the mic looking so damn pretty". The loosely jangling strut of "Long Burn The Fire" finds an anxious blend of wah-wah guitar and synth fluttering alongside DJ scratches as they proclaim, "If you're feeling strong, then reach for yours / My clique is my shield and my mic is my sword".

The remixed version of "Too Many Rappers", featuring a great guest appearance from Nas, only finds a minor change from its original version in its ground-up skyward synth whistle, but the hazy effect is enough to detract from the song and make the 2009 single stand as the far superior version. The time they do not spend talking trash to faceless enemies finds the crew delivering the dripping funk oddity "Funky Donkey" and the excellent twitchy instrumental "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament", with synth jittering over a subterranean bass groove.

A little lyrical meat would likely earn this inventive album legendary status, but as it stands, Beastie Boys' latest proves worth the wait.

IGN RATINGS FOR HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE PART 2
out of 10 Click here for ratings guide
8.5
OVERALL

[brmanuk]

http://www.allmusic.com/album/hot-sauce-committee-pt-2-r2066772/review

allmusic.com have posted their review but alas, they are holding back on their 5 star rating till the release date.

Once Adam Yauch discovered he had cancer in 2009, the Beastie Boys shelved their forthcoming The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 and its companion volume, gradually reviving and revising the project once Yauch went into remission. At this point, they scrapped their convoluted plans to release concurrent complementary volumes of THSC and simply went forth with The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, which retained the bulk of the track list from Pt 1. All this hurly-burly camouflages the essential truth of The Hot Sauce Committee: that the Beasties could sit on an album for two years to no ill effect to their reputation or the record’s quality. This doesn’t suggest they’re out of step so much as they’re out of time, existing in a world of their own making, beholden to no other standard but their own. Certainly, the Beasties stitch together sounds and rhymes from their past throughout The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, laying down grooves à la Check Your Head but weaving samples through these rhythms, thickly layering the album with analog synths out of Hello Nasty, all the while pledging allegiance to old-school rap in their rhymes. Nothing here is exactly unexpected -- even the presence of Santogold on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” isn’t new, it’s new wave -- yet The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 feels fresh because there is such kinetic joy propelling this music. Last time around, the Beasties weighed themselves down by creating retro-tribute to N.Y.C., taking everything just a little bit too seriously, but here they’re free of any expectations and are back to doing what they do best: cracking wise and acting so stupid they camouflage how kinetic, inventive, and rich their music is. And, make no mistake, The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 does find the Beastie Boys at their best. Perhaps they’re no longer setting the style, but it takes master musicians to continually find new wrinkles within a signature sound, which is precisely what the Beasties do here.

[Darko]

Great review from Popmatters (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/140342-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-pt.-2/):

Even when all is right in the world, when the scourge of cancer isn’t darkening their self-contained doorstep, Beastie Boys have never been terribly prolific. The shortest stretch between studio albums over the past two-and-a-half decades was the two years and one month between the releases of Check Your Head and Ill Communication.

Beastie Boys albums arrive so infrequently, they’re treated like gala events. That’s a sword that cuts two ways of course, because when the album is terrific – like 1998’s Hello Nasty – all the praise it receives only enhances the party. But their weaker efforts – like 2004’s To the 5 Boroughs – are also universally lauded upon arrival, and once the thrill of having new Beastie Boys music begins to ebb, it can make you wonder if maybe you’re just missing something.

Is Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 gonna stick to your ribs after the issue of Rolling Stone with the inevitable four-star review has soaked up too much splashback in your bathroom and is resigned to the recycling bin? Well, yes. In a big way.

Exploring the convoluted path that led to the creation and release of Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 is ultimately pointless, as is speculation about whether its predecessor, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 will ever see the light of day. You might as well wonder if Bill Cosby will ever switch gears and release Leonard, Pts. 1-5. I’ll admit to missing the proposed Pt.1 cover, which reminded me of the sleeve of the Jungle Brothers’ debut, and while Pt.2 is worryingly Technicolor, at least it steers well clear of the recent overwhelming indie fondness for blurry Lomographic snaps.

No, the only history it’s important to touch upon is what’s happened over the past week or so, when the blogosphere lit up with leaky Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 links which turned out to be the dreaded “clean” version of the album. In response, the Beastie Boys put up the real deal sweary album on their website as a stream, and with under a week to go before the release actually drops, that’s the only legit shit out there.

Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 represents a return to form in more ways than one. Yes, Ad-Rock, Mike D and MCA sound rejuvenated, both by their perspective on hip-hop and their undeniable interplay. But the album also shares a great many links to its predecessors, with a debt to the sample-laden Paul’s Boutique and the fuzzed-out vocals and live instrumentation of Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Make no mistake, this is a contemporary album by a contemporary Beastie Boys. Sure, they’re still hilarious and juvenile, which is great because I’m only a few years younger than them myself, and I’m a complete doofus. But even when they’re in classic call/response hip-hop territory, it’s still bakery fresh. Well, for the most part, anyway.

“Lee Majors Come Again” was initially released on vinyl for Record Store Day in 2010, a sample-heavy version with nods to Daft Punk’s “Da Funk”. On the album, the super disco breaks have been replaced with aggro hardcore riffage, which while an undeniable part of the Beastie DNA, isn’t necessarily the right sound for the song.

But really, that’s minor grousing. Because above all else, the Beastie Boys are music nerds, just like the rest of us. And if they want to throw a mess of different music into the mix, well take a look at your iPod and tell me you’re not doing the same damn thing.

Even when treading ground that might exploit mere mortals as charlatans, the Beasties are so natural and nonchalant that it comes off perfectly. Sometimes an artist will whip out special guest stars when there’s nothing left in the tank, when a gimmick beats coming up with an original idea or when their own name is no longer an ironclad guarantee that precious units will be moved. “Too Many Rappers”, with Nas, still sounds as good in its “new reactionaries version” as it did a year-and-a-half ago. And the contribution of Santigold, on the dub-inflected “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” is also vital without seeming forced or intrusive. In fact, it’s one of the album’s best cuts, no mean feat on a collection where just about everything feels as though it belongs.

For those who’ve grown weary of good intentions and political grandstanding and their inherent clumsy rhymes (To the 5 Boroughs’ “It Takes Time to Build”, even if you agree with the sentiment, had virtually no flow) entering the equation, the revelation that “Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament” is an instrumental should come as some relief.

Of course, a Beastie Boys album will ultimately hit or miss because of the Beasties themselves. This time around, the rhymes are tight, the beats are meaty and the vibes are good and plenty. It begins with recent single “Make Some Noise”, a three-and-a-half minute reminder of everything that made you love the Beastie Boys all those years ago, up to and including the pre-bridge cowbell, played by Will Ferrell in the celebrity-studded long form video, “Fight for Your Right (Revisited)”.

“Nonstop Disco Powerpack” recalls De La Soul’s “The Bizness” and its own album, Stakes is High, in delivery and design, while “Tadlock’s Glasses” is the sound of a thousand Casio keyboards mounting a revolution from beyond the grave.

I’ll leave the discussion about whether Messrs. Diamond, Horovitz and Yauch are too old or too out of touch to be taken seriously to someone else. I’d rather just shut up and enjoy this blast from the present and past without worrying about all that brow-furrowing bullshit. Good stuff, Beastie Boys. Shall we check back in three to five years, then?

9/10

[brooklyndust]

I have noticed in the majority of negative reviews, that the reviewers have wrong information. Ie. Lyrics release dates. Sometimes they can’t even tell the difference between the beasties. Which makes me question why I continue reading their opinion. Also they imagine things that never happened. Like the beastie boys being known for wearing cargo shorts.

“we got a party on the left, a party on the right, we got a party in the middle, got a right to fight".
That’s not even in close. Did he even listen to the fucking song?

[JoLovesMCA]

I have noticed in the majority of negative reviews, that the reviewers have wrong information. Ie. Lyrics release dates. Sometimes they can’t even tell the difference between the beasties. Which makes me question why I continue reading their opinion. Also they imagine things that never happened. Like the beastie boys being known for wearing cargo shorts.

“we got a party on the left, a party on the right, we got a party in the middle, got a right to fight".
That’s not even in close. Did he even listen to the fucking song?

Agree. One reviewer said the album sounded like they were in a tin can. They obviously don't listen to enough music and shouldn't have any place reviewing it in the first place with comments like that! They probably have Michael Bolton on replay. Anyway I just died when I read L.A. Times review. 4/4 STARS! Plus their comments on MCA warms my heart!


The album was delayed for nearly two years due to his struggle with cancer but you’d never know that from MCA’s impactful delivery -- his gruff rasp remains one of pop music’s most distinctive, electrifying voices.


“Oh, my God – just look at me/Grandpa been rapping since ’83”: so goes a telling new rhyme from iconic hip-hoppers Beastie Boys off the New York City trio’s just-released eighth album, "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two." It’s factually correct: the group released its first rap single, “Cooky Puss,” nearly three decades ago -- more like three centuries in terms of hip-hop shelf life. None of the Beasties’ peers enjoy the contemporary relevance that Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz) and his bandmates Mike D (Mike Diamond) and MCA (Adam Yauch) carry.

Most rap pioneers also aren’t known for making exciting new music, period – including the Beasties. The group’s last non-instrumental effort, 2004’s "To The Five Boroughs," received a relatively tepid response. "Hot Sauce…," however, is exactly the Beasties album that the public has been salivating for, and more -- not just a return to form, but a masterpiece on the level of ‘80s classics like their raucous debut "Licensed To Ill" and the staggering sample odyssey "Paul’s Boutique."

What makes "Hot Sauce…" so vital is that the Beasties sound hungrier than most musicians currently posting their first Internet demos. This is vintage Beasties, all exuberant pass-the-mic battle rhymes and gritty breakbeats so funky, it’s near impossible not to head-bob through the entire record -- or slam dance, as the hardcore thump on “Lee Majors Come Again” so inspires. These aesthetics prove not so much dated as timeless: the Beasties don’t sound like they’re repeating themselves as much as creating fresh grooves with a sensibility that’s proved enduring.
Revered MC Nas makes a stellar guest appearance here on “Too Many Rappers”; you can practically hear him grinning through his verses. Santigold also cameos memorably on “Don’t Play No Game I Can’t Win,” adding Brooklyn dancehall fire and a welcome feminine contrast to the b-boy stances. But the momentum on "Hot Sauce…" truly comes from the original members’ committed, energetic performances, in particular that of MCA.

The album was delayed for nearly two years due to his struggle with cancer but you’d never know that from MCA’s impactful delivery -- his gruff rasp remains one of pop music’s most distinctive, electrifying voices. In fact, the entire band sounds simultaneously galvanized and relaxed. There’s long been tension between the Beasties’ politically incorrect early work and the sanctimoniousness of later years, but "Hot Sauce…" perfects the happy medium. No rhymes here are sexist or vulgar, but all are deliciously unhinged, jumbling anachronisms with dizzying aplomb: Ted Danson, André Leon Talley, Eggos and La-Z-Boy all get shout-outs, alongside more current nods to, say, “Top Chef.”

In the past, the Beasties have worked with production talents like Rick Rubin and the Dust Brothers who have gone on to define eras. "Hot Sauce…" follows in that tradition: it’s mixed by Phillippe Zdar, who hails from the Parisian electronic-music gene pool that spawned Daft Punk, and co-producer of Phoenix’s 2009 "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix," one of the most sonically thrilling albums in recent memory. Zdar is especially renowned as a keyboard alchemist, and likewise "Hot Sauce…" comes off as the Beasties’ love letter to classic synthesizers: “Ok” squelches like first-rate Gary Numan, and buttery analog fatness underpins nearly every track. Zdar’s mix is startlingly raw -- each vocal is seemingly pushed through furry distortions, percolating delays, or robotic vocoders, every snare crack ripping through the speakers -- capturing the sound of artists inspired anew to run riot through their heritage. The Beasties’ irreverence is what made them stand out in the first place; that their willful chaos continues to charm and mutate so many years on is the big surprise.
Beastie Boys
“Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”
(Capitol)
Four stars (Out of four)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/05/album-review-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two.html

[willis drummond]

Cool LA Times review. I echo many of this reviewer's sentiments. It's going to take time to properly digest this record but they seem more confident, hungrier, and focused than in quite sometime. This record coming out along with the recent Bin Laden news had me thinking about TT5B and the flack (I feel somewhat deserved) that it still receives. It made me realize that Beasties can only create what is genuine and real to them at the time of recording. TT5B was a rigid record made during a tense time and it certainly shows. Hot Sauce to me is a record made out of positive vibes and a true love for music. As a lifelong fan I'm not sure I could have asked for more.

[JoLovesMCA]

Cool LA Times review. I echo many of this reviewer's sentiments. It's going to take time to properly digest this record but they seem more confident, hungrier, and focused than in quite sometime. This record coming out along with the recent Bin Laden news had me thinking about TT5B and the flack (I feel somewhat deserved) that it still receives. It made me realize that Beasties can only create what is genuine and real to them at the time of recording. TT5B was a rigid record made during a tense time and it certainly shows. Hot Sauce to me is a record made out of positive vibes and a true love for music. As a lifelong fan I'm not sure I could have asked for more.

Hungry is the perfect word. I couldn't quite figure out what word I wanted to use and that sums it up. That's why I think it's made me so excited about the record because they sound so excited about it. Anyway agree with everything you said. (y)

I was waiting for somebody to it least just go ahead and give it a four star. It doesn't have to be everybody because I am quite happy with the reviews so far but L.A. times made my night!

[Darko]

Another A- review from AV Club (http://www.avclub.com/articles/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two,55415/):

Beastie Boys eased naturally into their role as hip-hop elder statesmen a long time ago. These days the Boys are so far removed from trends in contemporary hip-hop that they’re practically Paleolithic—and that seems to suit them just fine. On Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D. perform old school bits with telltale names like “The Lisa Lisa/Full Force Routine” and “The Larry Routine” with the cheesy élan of grandparents telling cornball jokes to their indulgent grandkids. Like the Boys’ curiously underrated last album, 2004’s To The 5 Boroughs, Hot Sauce is rooted in the good-time party-rocking rhymes and dusty grooves of old-school hip-hop, though the group finds ways to expand its sound without deviating from retro fundamentals.

On previous albums, the proud dilettantes’ genre-hopping sometimes felt like experimentation for experimentation’s sake, but here the forays sound both purposeful and fitting, whether the Beasties are going reggae alongside Santigold on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” or fusing hip-hop with cranked-up rock guitars on “Lee Majors Come Again.” The sparky, electronic “OK” leans to the new wave side of the ’80s and Nas slides easily into the old school cadences he last rocked on Ludacris’ “Virgo” on “Too Many Rappers,” a long-in-the-works—and worthy—teaming of legends.

Hip-hop remains a fountain of youth for true believers like the Beasties. At this point, part of the joke comes from proudly juvenile rhymes emerging from such ancient, respected minds. This is the music Beastie Boys love whether it’s trendy or not. Three decades in, they continue to school the kids.

I hope the few more negative reviews don't detract from the otherwise unanimous praise it's getting.

[Axel_Foley]

I love the new album.. A+ and the video is sick!

-W

[dave790]

http://www.metacritic.com/music/hot-sauce-committee-pt-2

noice. so far.

[Travis Bickle]

From the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/quick-spin-hot-sauce-committee-part-2-from-the-beastie-boys/2011/05/02/AF5vXKbF_story.html

[Jmoney77]

I love it, but i dont know if its because im a Beastie Boys fan. They can do now wrong in my mind.

[willis drummond]

The boys get lost a few times along the way, and the flat second track, “Nonstop Disco Powerpack,” is actually cringe-inducing.

One man's ceiling is another man's floor. This is easily top 3 track for me thus far and one of their better flows in some time. Ay dios mio.

[Brother McDuff]

I remember how eager they were to return to the studio after the gala tour. HSCP2 sounds right on par with their attitudes upon beginning production.

[brooklyndust]

Here's a good one from the Toronto Star:
****1/2 (out of 4)

The original punk rock rappers return with their first lyrical LP since 2004's To The 5 Boroughs, and arguably their best album since 1989's groundbreaking Paul's Boutique.

Initially delayed after MCA was diagnosed with treatable cancer in 2009, a clean version of Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (which is actually part one) leaked onto the web earlier this year. One of the first groups to make MP3s freely available on their own website, the Beasties rolled with the proverbial punches and let the masses stream the “dirty” version for free in advance of today's official release.

Smashing together blasts from their sonic past with flash-forward genre-bending, Ad-Rock, Mike D and MCA slap listeners with everything from their signature microphone grime and throwback basslines to robo-metal freak-core.

“Running wild like rats in the Taco Bell,” the boys jump out of the gate with “Make Some Noise,” crank up the musical pyrotechnics on “Say It,” then simmer down to stinky funk on “Long Burn the Fire” and “Here's a Little Something for You.” The lone instrumental cut, “Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament,” is a mellow sizzler, though the ears of lyric lovers may steam with the hypnotic beat's wordlessness.

The Beastie Boys have been recognized for hall-of-fame contributions to multiple genres, from hip hop to rock 'n' roll. Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 lands somewhere between the two, with the Beastie three once again proving you can put their ish on anything.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/984250--beastie-boys-bounce-back-with-album

[brooklyndust]

Windsor star gives them a nice tribute:

http://www.windsorstar.com/entertainment/Beastie+Boys+still+shaking+rumps/4712116/story.html

[ClarenceAlabama]

The boys get lost a few times along the way, and the flat second track, “Nonstop Disco Powerpack,” is actually cringe-inducing.

One man's ceiling is another man's floor. This is easily top 3 track for me thus far and one of their better flows in some time. Ay dios mio.

This is my favorite song on the album right now. It's a perfect old school rap song.

[kaiser soze]

Mr. Blahg review

http://mrblahg.com/2011/04/25/music-review-hot-sauce-committee-part-2-beastie-boys/

Although Beastie Boys had released two albums in the last decade, I honestly haven’t listened to anything of theirs since 1998’s Hello Nasty… and that album is one of my all time favorites. I was happy to hear that Adam Yauch was doing well after his bout with cancer… and happier to hear that they were dropping their newest album, Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 on May 3rd.

CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/26/beastie.boys.review.rs/index.html?eref=edition_entertainment&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition_entertainment+% 28RSS%3A+Entertainment%29

That's the kick of "Hot Sauce" -- the Beasties sound exactly like themselves, cutting loose without straining to fit anyone else's idea of relevance. Adam "MCA" Yauch, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz originally scheduled "Hot Sauce" for release in 2009, until the project was derailed by MCA's battle with cancer. Now cheekily retitled "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two," it's their first album in seven years, unless you count 2007's stoner-funk instrumental throwaway, "The Mix-Up." It's also a return to classic Beasties chutzpah: On "Hot Sauce Committee," they're not sweating to impress anyone except one another.

[senbei]

Fair enough review from Pitchfork:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15398-hot-sauce-committee-part-two/

7.0/10


It's hard to imagine pop culture in the 1990s without Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D. During those years, the Beastie Boys didn't sell the most records or grace the most magazine covers, but they brilliantly articulated how a constellation of obsessions-- early hip-hop, hardcore, trash culture, 70s TV, vintage sneakers, skateboarding, vinyl records-- could be pulled together into not just a coherent aesthetic but a way of life.

Looking at their arc from a purely musical perspective, you could divide their career in half at the midpoint of that decade-- at some point between 1994's Ill Communication and 1998's Hello Nasty. Their first four full-lengths came in less than eight years, and during this stretch, they were hungry and on the move, restlessly searching for new avenues of music expression. They're just now getting to their third proper album (fourth, if you want to count 2007's instrumental LP The Mix Up) in the 17 years since. The Boys became men, and now they're gliding respectably into middle age, living honorable lives and playing music only if and when they feel like it. (This album was originally supposed to come out in 2009, but MCA has been battling cancer and the re-jiggered version was labeled Part Two.) They broke their ground, and now they have nothing to prove and no pop scene to become part of. Which means that they can focus on being the Beastie Boys, and let the fans decide if they want to engage with them on that level.

In this case, being the Beastie Boys means returning to the thicker, heavier sound they ushered in with Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Hot Sauce Committee mixes live instrumentation and samples into the kind of soupy production first unleashed on the world with "Pass the Mic" and furthered with songs like "So What'cha Want" and "Sure Shot". It's a very different feel from 2004's To the 5 Boroughs, their post-9/11 love letter to New York that found them more or less stripping down and letting simpler beats and straight-ahead vocals do the talking. These songs are dense with sound effects and heavy on the bottom end, and the vocals are processed with a mixture of distortion and EQ that obscures the details of their rapping and the content of their lyrics but also gives the music a bit of snarl. They're good at this sound.

The song titles suggest that the Beastie Boys feel comfort in their position, addressing culture that was already retro in 1986 ("Lee Majors Come Again"-- he was the Six Million Dollar Man, kids), paying tribute to the music of their youth ("Nonstop Disco Powerpack"), and offering a bit of inspirational uplift ("Long Burn the Fire"). These and other tracks reference earlier work in ways even more direct. "Lee Majors" is the latest in the line of "Remember, we used to be a hardcore band" songs that stretches back to their 1992 cover of Sly Stone's "Time for Livin'". "Long Burn the Fire" has vocals from all three, but starts off feeling like a "state of MCA" dispatch in the vein of "Stand Together" or "A Year and a Day", this time delivered with a touch of weariness. Both "Fire" and "Say It" have an overloaded end-of-bar sound effect that brings to mind "Pass the Mic", "Gratitude", and "Sabotage". And "Nonstop" once again has rhymes about macaroni and cheese and keeping on until the break of dawn.

Other echoes from earlier songs abound, but you don't come to the Beastie Boys for something new, which is perfectly fine, even a little admirable. Beginning with Paul's Boutique, part of their appeal has been that they've built a little clubhouse in their G-Son studio and invited everyone inside. They've gone off on their own trip, returning to the same pop culture obsessions and building their own context rather than integrating into the musical world around them.

On two songs here, they do in fact invite in notable guests. First is "Too Many Rappers", which debuted online in 2009 and finds Nas trading rhymes with his hometown pals. While it doesn't come close to the silly and stoned riffing of the 1994 Q-Tip feature "Get It Together", it's going for something entirely different-- a spiky aggro feel that finds their fellow New Yorker sounding a bit distant and indistinct. "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" features Santigold on the hook of a track with a reggae lilt, and the pairing feels natural and obvious-- you could argue that the Beastie Boys' polyglot approach in the 90s helped clear the way for her style, which mixes an ear for the sound of other cultures with a touch of Lower East Side artiness.

Taken together, these 16 songs, which seem to touch on just about everything the Beastie Boys have said and done, may not add up to something amazing, but they do the job. And listening to Hot Sauce Committee, it's hard not to reflect on how long the Beastie Boys have been together and how, unusually, their musical partnership still seems grounded in friendship rather than just business. There's still something inspiring in the idea of the Beastie Boys that transcends any single release. So while this may not be a great album or even a top-tier Beastie Boys album-- I'd place it somewhere between Hello Nasty and the inferior 5 Boroughs, neither of which can touch those first four-- anyone who cares about these guys will be glad it exists.

— Mark Richardson, May 4, 2011

[dave790]

good review, well written. it justifies the score it's given. and it's not trying to make some clever fucking point about relevance like NME or the NY times reviews.

[stereoblab]

Great review from Popmatters (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/140342-beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-pt.-2/):

Thanks for posting this - I'm the writer, a longtime Beastie Boys fan from my middle school days way back in the mid-'80s when they didn't show for their support slot at a PiL show at the Beacon Theatre.

I had a friend point out a couple of mistakes in my writeup after it went live, but hopefully I didn't fuck it up too much.

I'm on a long drive tomorrow, and the new album may be the only music I listen to.

[Domagoj]

Hello y'all :)

I've been lurking for like 2 or 3 years now and I finally decided to join the message board. Yay.

So there we go. My first post. Just wanted to let you know, that the Beasties are getting a lotta love here in Switzerland.

Here's a scan from Switzerland's biggest newspapers:
http://imageshack.us/f/220/bboys.jpg/

Let me sum up the review in a few words:

The Beastie Boys are back - with another classic

A classic rap album, a mediocre instrumental album and MCA having cancer - it was questionable if the Beasties could ever regain their old creative strength. But they're back with another classic. Mixing up different styles of music just as they did on their other classic albums such as LTI and PB. No matter what genre the boys are experementing in - it sounds great and it always sounds like the Beastie Boys. Once again they've shown us: The BBoys are important, they still are relevant. Sure the style-mix up can get exhausting over time - but hey - that's also part of the MCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D experience.


Anybody got other international reviews? Would be nice to see if the whole world is feelin the new album :)

Cheers

[JoLovesMCA]

Hello y'all :)

I've been lurking for like 2 or 3 years now and I finally decided to join the message board. Yay.

So there we go. My first post. Just wanted to let you know, that the Beasties are getting a lotta love here in Switzerland.

Here's a scan from Switzerland's biggest newspapers:
http://imageshack.us/f/220/bboys.jpg/

Let me sum up the review in a few words:




Anybody got other international reviews? Would be nice to see if the whole world is feelin the new album :)

Cheers


Hi Domagoj nice to meet you. I am JO!!! Welcome to the bbmb, glad you decided to join. It's a great community of fans. I think the international idea is great and it's cool that the BB's are getting some love in Switzerland! (y)

[Domagoj]

Hi Domagoj nice to meet you. I am JO!!! Welcome to the bbmb, glad you decided to join. It's a great community of fans. I think the international idea is great and it's cool that the BB's are getting some love in Switzerland! (y)

wow, thx for the warm welcome. Seems to be a very nice board with very nice people on it. Just the kinda fans the Beasties deserve :)

[dave790]

http://www.billboard.com/news/beastie-boys-reveal-hot-sauce-committee-1004124077.story#/news/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-2-1005167882.story

Billboard track by track.



"Hot Sauce Committee Part 2" arrives seven years after the release of the Beastie Boys' last non-instrumental full-length, "To the 5 Boroughs," although the drought should have only been five years. The veteran rap trio was gearing up to release its next album in 2009 and had lined up headlining sets at festivals like Lollapalooza and All Points West that year, but after Adam "MCA" Yauch revealed that he had a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland, all tour dates were cancelled and the album was pushed back indefinitely.

After staying inactive in 2010 as Yauch recovered, the Beasties are back with a 16-track album full of squelchy beats, tossed-off jokes and on-point rhyming. First single "Make Some Noise" was given an all-star music video that paid homage to the Beasties' iconic "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" clip, with Seth Rogen, Danny McBride and Elijah Wood joining in on the fun. The rappers also tapped two talents from opposite ends of the hip-hop spectrum for the album: Nas, whose veteran leadership drives "Too Many Rappers," and Santigold, the Philadelphia upstart who makes an appearance on "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win."


How does the rest of "Hot Sauce Committee Part 2" measure up? Here's our Twitter-length track-by-track review of each song.


1. "Make Some Noise" -- Funky keyboards, cowbell, and a "party for the motherf***king right to fight." The Beasties -- and 1992 -- are back!


2. "Nonstop Disco Powerpack" - A nice, woozy comedown, with echoing vocals and a lack of distinct hooks. Hip-hop for hip-hop's sake.

3. "Ok" - Between "Intergalactic"-esque robo-chorus, distorted rhymes over playful synths. Fun track, but wordplay is too garbled for impact

4. "Too Many Rappers" - Nasty Nas gets a nasty beat: trading verses, four MCs "come together like peanut butter and sandwiches." Delicious.

5. "Say It" - Sinister beat creaks forward before unhinged refrain. Placement after "Too Many Rappers" makes this seem underdeveloped.

6. "The Bill Harper Collection" - 24-second interlude. It's fine -- but no "5 Piece Chicken Dinner," y'know?

7. "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" - Beasties, meet Santigold and her breezy allure. After esoteric front half, a gorgeous exhalation.

8. "Long Burn the Fire" - Classic B-boy funk. MCA & Ad are on-point, but Mike D wins the song by "running wild like rats in the Taco Bell."

9. "Funky Donkey" - At 2 mins, "Donkey" might hold album's most interesting beat. Steel drums + strolling keys + bombastic breakdown = score.

10. "The Larry Routine" - Now THIS is a solid interlude: a fully formed lyrical concept in 31 seconds or less. Don't skip this one.

11. "Tadlock's Glasses" - Risky track that works. Rappers trudge through the murk, and the hook sounds like it was recorded in outer space.

12. "Lee Majors Come Again" - Remember when the Beasties were punk rock? A fast-paced, out-of-place Molotov cocktail that burns bright.

13. "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" - Sumptuous instrumental track could have been called, "Check out 'The Mix-Up,' It's Really Good, I Swear!"

14. "Here's a Little Something For Ya" - Kinetic cut buried too deep. Love MCA's offer, "If you're feeling chilly, I'mma get you a shawl!"

15. "Crazy Ass Shit" - Another shining track that seems too short, this one buoyed by child's chorus singing the hook and tenacious drums.

16. "The Lisa Lisa/Full Force Routine" - We end on a 49-second burst of triumphant sonic ideas. Maybe a bridge to "Hot Sauce Committee Pt 1"?

[Nerd Fight]

Another review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/01/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-review?intcmp=239) from the Guardian; 4 out of 5

Not so long ago, it seemed as though the Beastie Boys might end up gently gentrifying away from frontline rapping. Well into their 40s, successful beyond their teenage punk rock dreams, they had families and interests to pursue other than "rocking the house till the break of dawn" (a Beasties lyrical staple for over 20 years).

There was Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz's acting, Adam "MCA" Yauch's film work and Tibetan activism, and Michael "Mike D" Diamond's wine blog. The Beasties' last album, 2007's The Mix-Up, had been entirely instrumental, quietly winning them a Grammy. The album that preceded it was 2004's To the 5 Boroughs, an emotional response to 9/11, the Bush administration and other tyrannies. It had its moments – the single "Ch-Check it Out", chiefly – but 5 Boroughs's sombre cast could easily have marked the end of the bratty outfit who emerged in 1987 fighting for their right to party. Lest we forget, these now genteel salt'n'peppered Buddhist sympathisers once toured with a giant inflatable penis, started riots and appalled the tabloids in the late 80s.

And yet, quite unexpectedly, the Beasties are now releasing a party album that's as good as 1998's Hello Nasty. Originally scheduled for release in September 2009, the eighth album by the New York rap crew was delayed to allow MCA to undergo treatment for a tumour to a salivary gland.

Heralded online by a typically mischievous video trailer, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two finds the Beasties on marvellously carefree form, scattering references to food, microphones, Bob Dylan, Lee Majors and other pop-cultural detritus as joyously as if the Dalai Lama had just kung fu'd the entire Chinese army in 360-degree slo-mo. "Make Some Noise" opens the album with a farty, rolling hook and the self-referential chorus of "We're gonna party for the motherfuckin' right to fight!"

To modern ears, attuned to the radically different concerns and techniques of contemporary hip-hop, the Beasties' bouncy old school sound will seem downright prehistoric. While post-gangsta hip-hop bristles with murderous intent, the Beasties continue to stage verbal MC battles like it's 1985. Released in 2009 and reworked here, "Too Many Rappers" ropes in hip-hop institution Nas to sneer paternalistically at the calibre of wordplay nowadays, like a New York summit of grumpy old men.

Roping in fans who were still in nappies when "Sabotage" was released is not, however, the order of the day here. Rocking the house till the break of dawn is. Forays into reggae and hardcore punk punctuate a tracklisting that rarely flags. "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" finds Santigold intoning languorously over a psychedelic dub track, while "Lee Majors Come Again" revisits the band's punk roots. Even the instrumental bagatelle "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" justifies its inclusion by being irresistibly groovy. There is, apparently, a Hot Sauce Committee Part One waiting in the wings. You can only conclude that the Beasties' Tabasco is, once again, in full flow.


Also, for what it's worth, my girlfriend, who is usually supremely disinterested in the music I listen to, and who has only heard HSCP2 in passing as I've been playing it, spontaneously pronounced that the album was very good and that she was surprised at how good it is.

[Jiberish]

My friend Eric texted me to say "The new Beastie Boys record is so sweet that I can continuously yell "mothafucka" throughout the whole album in synch."

That's possibly the best review I've read.

[James Rock]

This was from the Vancouver Province newspaper, what do they know?

http://communities.canada.com/theprovince/blogs/quickspins/archive/2011/05/02/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two-capitol-emi.aspx


Back from a lengthy break as MCA fought cancer and both recording and touring schedules were put on hold, the Beasties stick to formula laid down on To the Five Boroughs on this new release. That album left fans divided on the merits of the group's willingness to accept place as elder statesmen of hip hop, no longer the adventurous band that dropped some genius albums in the nineties. This one is likely to at least raise a smile. From the opening vintage synth buzz funk vamp bringing in "Make Some Noise" to the punk rocking "Lee Majors Come Again," these could all be outtakes from the Ill Communication-era. So, you've got an EPs worth of good stuff and mostly quality filler. Best track: "Nonstop Disco Powerpack." Grade: C+

[taquitos]

some prindle to mix it up:

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two - Capitol 2011
http://www.markprindle.com/beastiea.htm#hot

6/10

And it's another long-awaited disappointment from the Beastie Boys. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I think these guys are pretty much creatively spent. They had seven years to work on this album -- Christ, it's only the second hip-hop album they've released in the last 13 years! -- and this is the best they could come up with!? It doesn't even have a unified sound like all their other albums, instead spilling forth a confused mess of To The 5 Boroughs-style old school rap, Hello Nasty-esque musicality, and weird noise blasts reminiscent of classic Public Enemy. It's this third type of song that's the most intriguing; I don't think the Beasties have ever rapped atop noisescapes as disconcerting and disorienting as those of "Too Many Rappers," "Long Burn The Fire," "Say It," "Crazy Ass Shit" and "Tadlock's Glasses." If they'd carried this dark and bizarre mood over the entire album, it would've been a striking departure well worth the wait. Instead, the industrial noise blasts are just one aspect of a poorly sequenced and inconsistent work. The record certainly starts strong, with buzz-synthed single "Make Some Noise" bringing back fond memories of Hello Nasty good times. But then it immediately loses steam with the brutally repetitive old schooler "Nonstop Disco Powerpack" and vomitously cutesy '80s synth-pop "OK." And this is the pattern for the entire record; every good idea is murdered by two or three awful ones. "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" is a horrible Santigold reggae track featuring the B. Boys only in a minor supporting role. "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament" is an unremarkable backing track whose instrumental status can only be attributed to lack of lyrical ideas. "Here's A Little Something For Ya" rides on a faux-dramatic synth line so lame it could've been on an early Kid Rock record. "The Bill Harper Collection" and "The Larry Routine" are in-jokes that make no sense. THREE DIFFERENT SONGS have their choruses performed (and ruined) by little kids.
As far as I can tell, the raps aren't particularly interesting either. Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is quoted in two different songs for some reason (its second appearance followed by the rebuke, "Stop singing that song!"), and the lyrics I can make out above the cheap mic distortion all seem to be pretty basic boasts. The energy level is mostly fine, although you'd never guess that "Lee Majors Come Again" was a punk rock song based on its laidback vocals; these men sound a hundred years older and tireder than the band that exuberantly shouted "Time For Livin'" two decades ago. Then again, one of them has cancer so maybe I should shut the fuck up, asshole (me).
In summation, the disc's most interesting tracks point towards a strange and noisy new chapter for the band. Unfortunately, Adam Yauch, Adam Horowitz and/or Michael Diamond lacked the interest and/or confidence to leave the comfortable past entirely behind. The result is a sloppy and unsatisfying mix of new and old, hypnotic and obvious, experimental and radio-pandering.
Regardless, if you haven't watched "Fight For Your Right Revisited," DO IT NOW! It's somewhere on the Internet. Find it!

p.s. im not trollin i just thought you guys might be interested

[JoLovesMCA]

No I am not least bit interested in what that person has to say. It's their opinion as far as not liking the album but the fact that they had to bring up Yauch's cancer thing makes me wanna gouge their eyes out.

[Jiberish]

That guys reviews are kind of hilarious.

[taquitos]

yeah he is really funny. gotta take it all with a grain of salt bc he writes more for enjoyment than anything else, i think. people should check out some of his other reviews.

[Sir SkratchaLot]

NPR Review. The guy gives a good review but gets a lot of facts wrong.
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/06/136022255/the-beastie-boys-hip-hop-with-a-dash-of-hot-sauce

[James Rock]

Friend of mine wrote this short review for Rosebudmag.com

http://www.rosebudmag.com/music-entertainment/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee

Beastie Boys are back with their first album since 2004’s To the 5 Burroughs, delivering more old school rhymes with a modern (and at times even progressive) aesthetic. The Beastie Boys are hip-hop’s defenders of the faith, keeping alive the humor, cleverness, and head-bobbing flows that make the genre great. Thankfully, Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 is a far cry from what you’ll hear on commercial rap radio these days. Here you get top notch emceeing with just enough curve balls to keep pushing forward. A welcome breath of fresh air in the hip-hop world.

[willis drummond]

?uestlove doggin the Beasties again. This time with some lame ass comparison to Andy Samberg's joke record. This guy is a such a whiner, saw him crying on the okplayer boards because someone called out the Roots for not touching the beats on Hot Sauce. Whatever.


questlove Questo of The Roots
hmm ok...noone is gonna start it? i will: Turtleneck & Chain vs Hotsauce Committee 5/10/11....who winning?


questlove Questo of The Roots
lol ALOT of my network is scared to say it i see.....#butYALLdontwannacommitteblasphemy so i'll leave it be.

[M|X|Y]

jimmy fallon is gonna be mad

[b-grrrlie]

Metro Sweden (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2083/5704433040_c38a893bb2_b.jpg)

The concept is still working

Beastie Boys are rewinding the tape and land in the middle of the 90's, somewere between "So What'cha Want" and "Sabotage". If the instrumental "The mix-up" was perfect background music for the coctail party the new release is a return to the pubertal shouty and brutally swinging hiphop which once made the trio legendary. Certain elements feel a bit dated, but mostly the concept works perfectly even in 2011.

Patrik Wirén

[Brother McDuff]

?uestlove doggin the Beasties again. This time with some lame ass comparison to Andy Samberg's joke record. This guy is a such a whiner, saw him crying on the okplayer boards because someone called out the Roots for not touching the beats on Hot Sauce. Whatever.


of course, just as I finally start to think he's not such a pompous prick after all. completely un-redeemed yourself ?uest.

this dude is so snobby and bitter. he just can't handle it that the masses prefer a trio of fun white boys over his 'highbrow' oh so deep roots music. loosen up that fro pick, lighten up.

he's pissed because Adrock had been mopping the floor with him in online boggle.

[Late-Night Lion]

Seriously, what a crybaby. The Lonely Island is a joke band that are funny enough, but can't come close to touching the musicality and beats of the b-boys. He must love that NBC money.

All this bitching even after they took The Roots on tour with them before they were well known in the 90s...ridiculous.

[Domagoj]

Right now, the HSCPt.2 has got an average score of 85 (out of 100) on metacritic.com
http://www.metacritic.com/music/hot-sauce-committee-pt-2

That is pretty damn good.

[destructo]

Seriously, what a crybaby. The Lonely Island is a joke band that are funny enough, but can't come close to touching the musicality and beats of the b-boys. He must love that NBC money.

All this bitching even after they took The Roots on tour with them before they were well known in the 90s...ridiculous.

I'm not saying they are better, you have to admit, I'm on a Boat is a great song. I digress..

[Michelle*s_Farm]

Noice (http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/2011/05/11/beastie-boys-–-hot-sauce-committee-part-two/)

[fonky pizza]

HSCII = MCII = E

DA ALBUM IS DA BOMB! Handle with care!(y)

[facedownfall]

terrible review:

http://blog.newvoices.org/?p=8144

[JUST-IN]

HSCII = MCII = E

DA ALBUM IS DA BOMB! Handle with care!(y)

YEP!!!(y)
:D:D:D

[JoLovesMCA]

terrible review:

http://blog.newvoices.org/?p=8144

Arthritis rap? Is being old school really that bad? Or being “older.” My friend thinks just because I love the Beasties and old school hip hop that I am stuck in a time warp. I am not. I like the Cool Kids, I like Nas, I like a few new age rap artists but I just happen to be bigger fan of the older stuff. How is that just because somebody has been around a long time they still can’t make good music. Plus honestly I think my problem with a lot of rap today is the content. I don’t mind the cursing and stuff but some of it is so cheesy it makes me cringe. That alien sex line in the Katy Perry song was stupid as hell. Sorry about my rant there lol, just was on my mind!

[celldweller1983]

it's not arthritis rap that review was crap nicely put jo(y)

[Bernard Goetz]

?uestlove doggin the Beasties again. This time with some lame ass comparison to Andy Samberg's joke record. This guy is a such a whiner, saw him crying on the okplayer boards because someone called out the Roots for not touching the beats on Hot Sauce. Whatever.

questlove Questo of The Roots
hmm ok...noone is gonna start it? i will: Turtleneck & Chain vs Hotsauce Committee 5/10/11....who winning?


questlove Questo of The Roots
lol ALOT of my network is scared to say it i see.....#butYALLdontwannacommitteblasphemy so i'll leave it be.


OK I get the Lonely Island one is probably a diss, but how do we know "butYALLdontwannacommitteblasphemy" (which I read as "but YALL dont wanna committ (sic) eblasphemy") is a reference to HSC?
Plus, shit, Quest is a Beastie fan:
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7215/mcboulangerieqlvwtzs4.jpg
https://twitter.com/#!/questlove/status/61915323628142592
http://www.flickr.com/photos/melcole/3723587179/in/photostream/
Lay off a brother.

[gumkojima]

New from Tiny Mix Tapes:

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/beastie-boys-hot-sauce-committee-part-two

[RichieT.]

http://artvoice.com/issues/v10n22/sg_records

"Top Ten Must Hear Summer Records"