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Beastie Boys, To The 5 Boroughs
It had to happen... Beastie Boys II Men.

Producer: The Beastie Boys
Label: Capitol

Reviewed by William Miller

The first warning sign To The 5 Boroughs wasn't going to make up for the six year gap between Hey Nasty and a new Beasties album came when I heard the first single "Ch-Check It Out". I d-did, and for a Beastie Boys single - a company it shares with such classics as "Fight For Your Right", "So What'chah Want", "Sabotage", and "Intergalactic" - it's extremely lacking. It's just so...ordinary.

And aside from a few exceptions, the same can be said for the rest of the album.

So many of To The Five Boroughs sounds like the song preceding it, and the one preceding that one.. and that one. I'm reminded of an Enya album - each track easy on the ears, each track almost indistinguishable from the next. Now there's a terrible thought. The Beastie Boys as the next Enya.

Lyric wise, To The 5 Boroughs provides the most social comment of any Beasties release. "An Open Letter To NYC" is a powerful shout out to their fellow New Yorkers (Boroughs, with its New York style beats, is more or less a Big Apple concept album), but almost three years after 911 and many crap tribute songs later, "NYC" seems a little too much too late. The same goes for the anti-gun, Columbine referencing ""Right Right Now Now". Gun control is sooooo last century.

With such serious content, are the Boys growing up? Unfortunately, yes. A palpable staleness hovers over Boroughs. Throw in the fact, they've taken their successor Eminem to task for his lyrics - ironic for a party band who almost called an album Don't Be A Faggot - and you've got a group on the verge of geriatric career suicide. Like so many other classic bands who hit their twentieth anniversary, the problem of relevance and keeping things fresh are unavoidable.

Will our Boys weather the dilemma? Stay tuned fans, stay tuned.

Rating: (1 1/2 out of 4 stars)