Beastie Boys - 'To The 5 Boroughs' (Parlophone)Released 14/06/04

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Beastie Boys return to the fray after a six year hiatus. The three piece hip hop outfit release their sixth album ‘To The 5 Boroughs’. The fifteen track epic is a real return to 1986’s ‘Licence to Ill’. Ironically that album featured an airliner crashing, and as New Yorkers ‘…5 Boroughs’ can’t help but be influenced by 2001’s catastrophic events. Since then the Beastie’s have campaigned endlessly for peace including the New Yorkers Against Violence benefit gig in the wake of 11/9 and this is really an extension of that message to their community.

Single ‘Ch-Check It Out’ opens the batting with its old skool brass stabs and signals the complete return to a more simple style hip hopping, leaving behind the scientific ramblings of 1998’s ‘Hello Nasty’ and the live instrumentation of ‘Paul’s Boutique’. Mics, samples and turntablism are the nature of the game with classic loops being dropped left right and centre. This could well be viewed as a one dimensional attempt at hip hop in its most basic form if wasn’t for the quality of the Beastie’s rhyming and trademark lyrical exchanges and that’s what makes the real difference between them and other white boy try-hards.

Despite the personal nature of this record it manages to hold your attention for the duration. ‘An Open Letter To NYC’s role call is the real focal point here “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten, from the Battery to the top of Manhatten / Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin, Black, White, New York you make it happen / …We come together on the subway cars / Diversity unified whoever you are.” Of course this idyllic view of New York City life may be a pile of shit but the intent of this album is heartfelt.