When I first heard about these guys, I wasn't dubious so much as I was confused. Any band that brought together the disparate personalities of Noel Gallagher, our belov'd website host Tom, my UK music industry friend Andrew Turner and my LA knows-everybody-in-music friend ML Compton in general approval clearly had to have something going for them, since I couldn't think of one other thing that would otherwise connect the four.
So Andrew sent me a copy of this, bless 'im, and it didn't take long to fall in love. What's weird is that all the Beatles meets Funkadelic comparison make no real sense beyond some obvious signifiers (Stephen Jones sure does sound like Paul McCartney with slurring and the beats are there, but I more often think of sampled hip-hop or maybe dub backing instead of performed drums, if you will). Not that the other ones work either -- Rolling Stone, in a typical example of getting it all wrong, said things like the Incredible String Band, which I could buy if the band never made me want to dance, so I concluded that once again Rolling Stone was staffed by fools. Not a hard decision.
Perhaps the only obvious connection has to be a similarly-hyped character out of LA by the name of one B. Hansen. But I've already had things to say about Beck, he whom I've only listened to a couple of times if that; the fact that local mouth-breather Robert Hilburn said the new material reminded him of Prince was enough for me to realize that somebody is doing somebody else a severe disservice here, though I'm not too sure who and in which direction, really. So from the one trick pony to the guys I still can't figure out, Scottish in background and armed to the teeth with things to do, say and play.
The early songs all have the same general feel, strums and slurs and soft builds and a good head-nodding vibe which shows that they listened to Def Jam as much as anybody in their early years. What's great is how it goes from good to fantastic in the simplest of ways, like when in the middle of "B + A" a fuller beat kicks in with the cymbals clashing and crashing. But as things go on, you hear the Betas getting even more confident with the studio, slipping in the sudden changes and switches and reversals that keep things on that beautiful flow, like the way the choruses sneak in for "Inner Meet Me" or how "The House Song" breaks into what sounds like a muffled Scottish Spanish rap over chimes left somewhere in the studio by Long Fin Killie, maybe.
By the time "Dr. Baker" rolls around and the breaks hit with the gentle bell/keyboard/whatever bits and Mason sings over and over and over like he's in this secular church with just the right amount of echo, things are moving beyond great. The full debut album is a blast too, BTW. But you should start here.