BEASTIE BOYS

Hot Sauce Committee
Part Two

[Capitol]

The long-awaited eighth Beastie Boys album begins on a familiar note. Over a funky, distorted organ riff and clanging, old-school beat, rappers Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Adam “MCA” Yauch respectively bark, shriek and croak their lines, complementing one another as they have since the early ’80s when the trio busted out of New York City nearly fully formed. “Make some noise if you’re with me,” they holler together on the chorus, anticipating a welcome-back roar.

Originally due in 2009 but shelved following the news that Yauch had been diagnosed with throat cancer, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is a reminder of why just about everyone—hip-hop heads, punk rockers, metal dudes and plain-old pop fans—is down with the Beasties. Clever as ever, with their juvenile sense of humor very much intact, the Boys pepper Hot Sauce with the usual goofy non sequiturs and pop-cultural references, dazzling even when they say very little. On the inane banger “Funky Donkey,” they quote Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in one line and explain the difference between pad thai and pad see ew (the latter dish is “darker”) in another.

The album is, as always, heavy with boasts, but the Nas-assisted single “Too Many Rappers” in particular smacks of more than mere throwaway braggadocio. The Beasties are middle-aged white guys in a genre historically dominated by young African-Americans, and even if they’re beloved elder statesmen whose place in history is secure, they’re not above reaffirming their greatness. –Kenneth Partridge