Don't Know What They're Singing About, but Beta Band's Hot Shots II Is Really Good

Were the Beta Band being ironic when they said, "We don't do irony"? Sometimes I have a hard time telling when British people (well, Scottish in this case) are being funny by saying the opposite of what they mean. I think I'll just embrace my American blockheadedness for once and stop worrying about whether some too-smart bunch is trying to put one over on me, because I really like this album.

Hot Shots II is the Beta Band's second release, the followup to the masterful The Three EP's that came out in 1999. In fact, they put out another disc, The Beta Band, in 1999, though they like to keep that one quiet because it pretty much sucked. You see, the Beta Band walks a fine line between innovative, eclectic, funk-driven electronic music and weirdness. While they admit to feeling most closely aligned to hiphop, funk and dub, their music begs comparison to too many bands to mention?on first listen your average rock 'n' roll head could cite influences from T. Rex, Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, the Byrds, David Bowie and of course the Beatles?especially since frontman Steve Mason can sound a hell of a lot like Paul McCartney. Such genre-melding always risks disaster, but with Hot Shots II the Scottish foursome seem to have perfected their formula. Both melodic and endlessly wordy, this album is a terrific listen?only occasionally descending into belly-button-gazing queerness and then only for as long as it takes to pause and go, "Huh?" Even then it doesn't really matter what level of abstraction they've arrived at because the music still sounds good.

The Beta Band frequently invoke a kind of wide-eyed sarcasm (reminiscent of post-Revolver Beatles) to get their point across (I can't say for sure what their point is, but it often has something to do with spaceships or Power Ranger robots or the threat of world domination). The quirky lyrics often belie the melody's mood and vice versa?which is exactly why their statement about irony has me scratching my head. For example, a track like "Alleged" features a perky ball-park organ and clunky, circus-procession-like percussion alongside the refrain, "Oh ma there's a hole in my head/I used the bullets that came with the gun you gave me." Alternately, a song like "Al Sharp" has got that 60s opiate love vibe?Mason's languid, harmonized vocals accompany sonorous guitar delays, a tinkly glockenspiel and old-school Space Echoes, yet the lyrics suggest something else entirely. "Is it because I'm beside myself with love that I can't say these things to you, honey?/Or is it because I'm beside myself with guilt that I can't say these things to you, honey?/You and me will never be fine?" Even "Eclipse," which is the B.B.'s six-and-a-half-minute-long treatise on the human condition ("We all live together on a little round ball/We all sing together when the cuckoo calls"), is nonetheless so lyrical, easily segueing from melodious vocal abstractions to full-on classic rock breaks, that I can overlook their ultra-weird indulgences.

What saves Hot Shots II from artful inaccessibility is the combination of Colin Emmanuel's (AKA C-Swing) fabulous mix and the Beta Band's impeccable instrumentation. Unlike other electro/post-hiphop bands whose music is intensely derivative and purposefully surreal (Beck, Primal Scream), this album maintains a musicality that is totally unmitigated by the Beta Band's excess of intelligence. Which is why I don't feel insulted when I have no idea what they're singing about.