Hot Shots II The Beta Band

“Despite its gung-ho name, ‘Hot Shots II’ is a dizzy, magical voyage of self-discovery – concise where its predecessor was unfocused, immediate where the pop urge was once lacking. The album’s original first single, ‘Squares’, is still trumped by I Monster’s incandescent ‘Daydream In Blue’, but beyond that, this sounds practically peerless. Think the organic electronics of ‘Screamadelica’ stripped of glorious Ecstasy epiphanies and embellished instead with towering Gregorian harmonies (‘Al Sharp’), surreal avant-rap segments (‘Dragon’), dysfunctional passages of lingering melancholia (‘Gone’), and, just occasionally, hard-fought moments of revelation.” - Louis Pattison, NME