The Beta Band were a unique band. If they weren't making music for other bands to rip-off for greater monetary gain, they were giving their own albums such a pasting that nobody bought them.
But now Steve Mason – the one from The Beta Band with the monk voice – has branched out alone for good as King Biscuit Time, and his new album Black Gold is easily the equal to anything The Beta Band made, perhaps even better. It's just a shame that Steve seems to have buggered off right before Black Gold is released.
In their time, The Beta Band were always trying to wriggle out of the ramshackle indie straitjacket that the music press trapped them in. That they tried to do this with the gloriously inept Beta Band Rap is probably the reason that they never managed to do it. It's heartening, then, that Black Gold by King Biscuit Time manages to break down musical boundaries with an ease which puts The Beta Band to shame.
Take Black Gold opener CIAM15. Its spare electronic pulses builds and build for a couple of minutes before it turns into a full-out dancehall blare complete with a ragga MC toasting about Tony Blair and George Bush. And it couldn't be better – in three minutes it accomplishes everything that The Beta Band tried and failed to do again and again. Elsewhere on Black Gold, dub melodicas float in and out of songs, which helps to draw the album together as a whole.
But all the electronic flourishes and world music within Black Gold – the oriental fills in recent single Kwangchow, the gorgeous Kraftwerk closer Metalbiscuit – can't hide Steve Mason's inescapable gift for melody. It bleeds through all King Biscuit Time songs, whether as the spare mournfulness like of Izzum, the anthemic Stone Roses shufflepop of Kwangchow, even the dreamy, spiralling Aphex Twin does Sigur Ros of Rising Son. There's not a single duff track on Black Gold, in fact.
King Biscuit Time and The Beta Band will always be merged together in people's minds – it's a curse of any vocalist as distinctive as Steve Mason – but Black Gold goes to show that King Biscuit Time will be around for a good while yet. And, if there's any justice in the world, summer 2006 will be King Biscuit Time time. It'd be nice if you could come back and play it live, Steve.
Order Black Gold by King Biscuit Time from Amazon for just £8.99
[review by Stuart Heritage]