The Betas might be the unluckiest bunch of fellas in pop; at least, there's a good case to be made here. Having virtually become the test case for all hugely talented rock bands that have been over-hyped and almost destroyed by their inky mentors, they famously proclaimed their debut album 'f**king awful'. Now their best attempts to shed their reputation for awkward anti-commercial behaviour seem to be doomed.
'Squares', the single that foolishly uses the sample from 'Daydream' by the Gunter Kallman Choir - already so overused that even Puffy would think twice and Will Smith would just plain forget about it - had to be dropped when it found itself in competition with a couple of other chart hopefuls. Thus, the Betas' attempt to court a wider public with the most commercial offering on 'Hot Shots 2' resulted in another slap in the face.
All this is set against the backdrop of the band's mighty achievements, namely the collective brilliance of 'The Three EPs'; certainly one of the most radical and greatest albums of the past ten years. Their challenge, and they have chosen not only to accept it but to positively embrace it, is to make music that doesn't simply influence bands with several more zeros to the end of their sales reports than those of our beleaguered heroes or, worse still, find themselves sidelined as a conversation piece for sweaty music journalists.
They've set about doing this by abolishing the lengthy builders of the '3EPs' era, along with the self-indulgences of their debut and, instead, working with Jamelia producer Colin 'C-Swing' Emmanuel on a tighter, more focussed bunch of songs.
The result is largely the mature second album that we were hoping for with Steve Mason's magical way with a tune still proving capable of injecting an awe-inspiring and yet indefinable emotional resonance to everything he touches. Fans of the band's oft-derided excursions into 'pots-and-pans' percussion and 'every-style-under-the-sun' musical patchwork may, however, find that 'Hot Shots 2' fails to provide a high quite as dizzying as 'Dogs Got A Bone' or 'The Hard One'. And, if C-Swing's involvement had anyone dreaming of a future in which Timbaland produces the Super Furries or other similarly wild imaginings - stop right there.
In fact, the production is pretty low-key, reigning in the band's tendency to batter the drums and bringing the taught rhythmic values of contemporary R&B to the mix. So, there's more of 'what's not there' rather than the excess of what noisily and defiantly is - though that's not to say that the Beta Band were ever incapable of syncopation. C-Swing comes to the fore on 'Broke' trying out a juddering futurist funk production worthy of America's finest but retaining a distinctly UK sound owing as much to Warp Records as it does to Missy Elliott. It must have been more fun than working on Jamelia's album.
Elsewhere there are some sublime moments scattered throughout this album: the ecstatic release of 'Quiet', mystical calm of 'Gone' and blissed-out acoustic thrum and group hug of 'Human Being'. Like all that's gone before it, 'Hot Shots 2' will reward the persistent listener with riches aplenty. All of which means to say that the Beta Band are still the unluckiest band in the world: still making exquisitely beautiful music that's destined to be heard by not nearly enough people, still another album away from the big break but, most importantly, still here. Buy these albums and treasure them.
