Beastie Boys: The Mix-Up

Beastie Boys
The Mix-Up
Capitol Records

Back in the early '90s, when the Beastie Boys picked up their rock-band instruments for the first time since their hardcore punk days to cut the material for 1992's Check Your Head, the idea of an album stocked with hip-hop-inflected instrumental funk jams was a bit of an oddity. And it felt like a singularly Beastie thing in the heady Grand Royal days that followed, continuing through 1994's Ill Communication and culminating in the fleetingly enjoyable 1996 comp The In Sound from Way Out!

When it comes to The Mix-Up, their new attempt to recapture the vibe of tracks like "Sabrosa" and "Ricky's Theme," there are just two catches: One, those instrumentals worked a lot better as brief interstitials between the actual rap cuts; and two, in their absence, the Beastie Boys' monopoly on NYC rap-cat instrumental funk has been smashed to pieces by the far tighter likes of the El Michels Affair and the Budos Band. The Beasties sound straight-up rusty by comparison here: Mike D's percussion comes across like he's randomly trying to find new beats between the one and the two, while MCA plays bass like he's following the rhythm through the wall of the next room over.

PR scuttlebutt says this is supposed to be a "post-punk" album, which might go a little way toward excusing some of the demo-take slackness of the sound; Adrock's saw-toothed psych guitar on "14th St. Break" and the abrasive dub effects on "Suco De Tangerina" help justify the tag. But the majority of the record seems largely intended as an extension of their Latin, funk, and jazz-hued early-'90s instrumental jams—though aside from the atypically clean-sounding opener "B for My Name," and the monstrous Money Mark keyboard workout "The Cousin of Death," it comes off more like a contraction. As the product of a few guys screwing around with lo-fi dance-rock, it's diverting enough (and given how To the 5 Boroughs turned out, it sure beats hearing them rap) but they're more than one short of a Gang of Four.