The Guys Of United By Encoding Proudly Present

[             The Beta Band - The Beta Band                 ]

Supplier [ [chrome]          ] ░▒▓▓▒░ [ AudioGrabber v1.50] Grabber
Releaser [ [chrome]          ]        [ Fraunhofer/Radium ] Encoder
Style    [ Other             ]        [ 160kbps / 44.1kHz ] Quality
Date     [ 06-30-1999        ] ░▒▓▓▒░ [ 10 (61:59 min)    ]   Songs

Everyone's trying desperately hard to sound like they're having the
time of their lives. It's an avant-farmyard jug band jam with steel
drums and possibly a few ducks, a ludicrous party. But somewhere at
the centre of 'Round The Bend' there's Steve Mason, sounding
desolate. "I just want to be left alone and never bothered ever
again", he's singing, and you can't help wondering; if even he can't
enjoy this fantasia of self-indulgence, what chance do we have?

For listening to 'The Beta Band' is like hearing a bunch of people
laughing themselves stupid at a punchline when you didn't catch a
word of the gag. It's where these hyper-creative eccentrics start
excluding their audience rather than ushering them into their cult, a
debut album apparently precision-designed to deflate expectations.

In other words, The Beta Band have blown it so comprehensively it
feels almost calculated; the last words Mason sings are, "I fucked it
up, I fucked it up". If their superb singles were the products of a
furious and playful experimentation, their album takes the principle
of doing whatever they like to its logical and ugly conclusion, with
goodish ideas flailing around amidst a great morass of in-jokes,
half-arsed messing about and disingenuous whimsy.

At times, it sounds like a bad comedy record, especially on opener
'Beta Band Rap' where they stray from barber shop harmonies, through
cod-gangsta rap posturing, to a succession of wretched karaoke Elvis
impressions whilst recounting their smug history, a kind of
millennial rock'n'roll swindle so self-referential it seems a
conceptual joke at the expense of the music business. There's a
rumour that The Beta Band were called into Parlophone and sternly
told off for making such a shoddy record - the kind of naughty
schoolboy mythologising you suspect they'd spread about themselves.

But then, just occasionally, something stronger breaks through.
Mason, when he's not being self-consciously barmy, appears
depressive, vindictive and messed-up: whilst his sullen raging
against an ex in 'Simple Boy' and 'Number 15' can't save hopeless
songs, they do at least make them vaguely intriguing. What's more,
this stupid and annoying album ends brilliantly. 'Smiling' revives
their old trick of organically reconstructing house grooves with
whatever comes to hand, in the style of the fabulous 'The Patty Patty
Sound EP', while 'The Cow's Wrong' is, broadly, The Beach Boys
singing 'Feel So Sad' by Spiritualized, and very lovely, too. Best of
all, the already-infamous 'The Hard One' is a dislocated, mournful
sprawl, orbiting unsteadily round a twisted motif from 'Total Eclipse
Of The Heart', that extracts genuine pathos from an apparently tacky
conceit. So much is boring and irritating before these gems
materialise, though, it's easy to miss them. Sure, The Beta Band's
bloody-mindedness is admirable, their talent leagues ahead of the
sort of artless student gumbo (hey, Gomez) they're often bracketed
with. But really: they just made this record for themselves, and if
anyone else genuinely loves every last second of it, it's not just a
bonus, it's a miracle.

http://www.nme.com

01 The Beta Band Rap                                      (04:40)
02 Its Not Too Beautiful                                  (08:29)
03 Simple Boy                                             (02:18)
04 Round The Bend                                         (04:56)
05 Dance Oer The Border                                   (05:33)
06 Broken Up A Ding Dong                                  (04:46)
07 Number 15                                              (06:48)
08 Smiling                                                (08:35)
09 The Hard One                                           (10:05)
10 The Cows Wrong                                         (05:49)

10 months in the scene, UBE can look back to a time of both fun and
trouble. It's a state every group has to go through, and I think,
we mastered this task. We now have a strong core of releasers and
couriers as well as some brand new guys who will help us to keep
UBE what it is....a group of friends bringing their music to the
scene. You rock guys !

We are always looking for new talented releasers, siteops, shell-
suppliers and all other people who think they can contribute some-
thing to our group. Feel free to contact us.

wonder/UBE

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