Punk, rock, dub, hip-hop: thirteen years after Adam Yauch’s passing, the New Yorker releases “Thank You”, a tribute to the trio’s enduring spirit.
Listening to Thank You, it’s not surprising that Mike D has recently brought Delta 5 back to life on stage. For what runs through Mike D’s veins is indeed British punk peppered with Jamaican dub. He also opens his concerts with the explosive Hello Brooklyn—the Beastie Boys’ signature call.
A band that belongs to the past since Adam Yauch’s passing, certainly, but whose sonic lab haunts every track on Michael Diamond’s first solo album, which, at 60, still carries his voice in such a distinctly perched way. After a long lull following the death of the third Beastie Boy, it took a pandemic for him to rediscover inspiration, surrounded by his sons Skyler and Davis. “Excitement comes from collaboration,” remarked their father.
A revival blaze that is both nostalgic and in tune with its time
If this is a solo outing, Thank You is very much the product of a collective process, as if Mike D stubbornly refuses to eat the cake alone… Among other sessions, he spent time at the legendary Shangri-La in Malibu, where he now lives, recording in a bus-studio that belonged to Bob Dylan, and enlisted the string work of Aaron Paris (Rosalía, Geese) and the brass of CJ Camerieri (Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver).
Opening with the noisy drum’n’bass of Switch Up, moving through the garage-tinged textures of True Colors à la Chemical Brothers, and then into the electro-rap of That’s Right, Thank You shines most in its diptych Secrets, fueled by frenetic synthetic pop. It also delivers, with abrupt precision, the tribal rap of Make It Stop, the hypnotic flow of Crypto, the cosmic electro of Here We Are, and the Gorillaz-like pop of Back to Start.
“Each track has been an experience,” he summarizes. A comeback that is at once nostalgic and relevant to its era, Thank You confirms the insatiable curiosity of a musician who spurns both genre constraints and the dangerous arrogance of political leaders. In closing, the moving title track expresses Mike D’s gratitude for everything this turbulent life has brought him so far. We, in turn, are just as grateful.
Thank You (Capitol Records/Universal). Released August 28.
