It opens as though it’s auditioning for U2’s ‘Unforgettable Fire’ album before adding a rumbling bass line and moving into a hypnotic, pseudo religious chant. Just as you become accustomed to this free falling feeling you’ve just discovered, your thoughts are disturbed by that clanging guitar before diving head first back in. It finishes up with trumpets and guitar crescendos and when it’s gone you feel the loss inside but you can’t remember exactly what it sounds like.
God bless the Beta Band, contrary bastards that they are. This, the first single off the new album and their first release since ‘Hot Shots II’. It takes the signature Beta Band sound and expands it for us, mixes it with the ‘Three Eps’ vibe to produce a majestic groove that makes a rubbish single but bodes well for the new album. Obviously they have called the new album ‘Heroes to Zeroes’, that’s confidence for you.
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On the 12”, b side ‘Shrek’ is enjoyable but not essential, the type of song the Beta Band can knock out in their lunch hour. More satisfying is a great remix of ‘Assessment’ by someone called C. Swing (me, neither). Although it doesn’t stray too far from the original it gives it a funky makeover and brings the trumpets to the fore. Nice.
There’s no point wishing the Beta Band would buck up their ideas a bit on the old playing the game side of things, as it would put a dent in their endearing shabbiness. To dismiss their records as the soundtrack for stoners however would be to miss out.
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