Check Your Head, the new record from rap's most innovative trio, will be released April 13th. The follow-up to the Beastie Boys' acknowledge masterpiece Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head will astonish each and every contemporary music fan. First off, group members Mike D., MCA, and Ad-Rock have returned to their musical roots -- 70% of the album's music, a stunning array of styles including Funkadelicized fuzz bass riffs, slinky guitar-propelled reggae, and straight-up hardcore punk, is played by the Beasties, seamlessly blended with off-the-wall sampled tidbits. Looping their own dusted-out riffs, the Beastie Boys have taken sampling to its logical conclusion. The self-produced Check Your Head's exploitation of new and old music sources could well be the most radical to date." Check out the visuals to their smash, "So What'cha Want," cont'd below...
"Apart from three diverse instrumentals ("Pow," "Groove Holmes," and "In 3's") that make up the 20 song set, the group gets on the mic to flaunt superior rhyming skills, frantic scratching, and the fattest keyboards this side of Jimmy Smith. Such old-school flavored jams as "Pass The Mic," "Finger Lickin'," and "What'cha Want" shred in an entirely new way, suggesting some unexplored netherland between The Minutemen and Spoonie G; "Time For Livin'," a hardcore punk tune harkening back to the group's Lower End Side origins, sounds as fresh as the Boys' whisper-sung vocals on "Mark On The Bus," the rootsy "Lighten Up," and the acid-soaked "Something's Got To Give." Keep an eye out for the obligatory Biz Markie cameo, "The Biz vs. The Nuge." Each song on Check Your Head speaks volumes. Loudly." - Press Kit, January 28, 1992 (25 years ago today), available below.
