To The 5 Boroughs Reviews

The hiatus is back off, again, for the Beastie Boys, and music lovers will bob their heads with insuppressible glee. With its Nice & Smooth impersonations and shout outs to Brooklyn's Albee Square Mall, To the 5 Boroughs , their first album in six years, harkens the return of the trio to the city that made them who they are today. It's an up-tempo yet surprisingly homogenous assemblage of vintage electro-style party beats, and it's a strictly Beastie affair: the Boys co-wrote and produced each track themselves, which means that it sports none of the sonic fripperies and quirky collaborations that distinguished previous classics such as Paul's Boutique . Finally jelling after two years of on-again, off-again recording, To the 5 Boroughs will appeal to those fans old enough to remember the Licensed to Ill tour. Those old-schoolers are sure to appreciate the album's mostly off-the-cuff lyrics and minimal-to-the-extreme musical landscape--even if its stripped-down sound may leave others longing for the days when the Boys were California dreamin'. --Rebecca Levine