April 92

The ancient B-Boy proverb goes, ''When all around you are losing their heads, check yours.'' In finishing their long-awaited third album, Check Your Head, the BEASTIE BOYS have done just that.

Like Licensed to Ill and Paul's Boutique before it,Check Your Headhas remarkable musical vision, incorporating a variety of styles that would make most bands explode with confusion and envy. From the heavy rhythm power to the hush hush whispered crooning, the album boasts a wealth of influence that makes it appear timeless. It's the first album of the decade to create a mellow state of chaos and a weird sciene.

Forget Beefheart, Zappa and Picasso, THE BEASTIE BOYS are the true Motherfuckers of Invention. If they had a chip on their shoulder it's long since been eaten. These are not the songs of beer-spraying brats dripping in arrogance -- OK, there's still a splash of that -- but the playground of a band who've submerged themselves in the groove. The mellow felons use history to its attention-grabbing best.

As is the mark of the Beasties, Check Your Head is cheeky yet never vacuous; its diversity makes it both fantastic and always funky. It gives you a world of collaboration you've never dreamt of. A battalion of Terminator X Fuzz Bass sets up endless funk that the Boys run wild over.

As if to set some standard for the sort of collaboration that should be going on in the world, they pull together the Calypso Yell of Biz Markie with the furious lashing streak of Ted Nugent. Whilst the Biz preferred the lure of the candy store, the Nuge spent his time in the studio cooking the big soup. You can tell a lot from what a man eats.

As ever there's a smorgasbord of references to the cuisine scene. This band is cursed and blessed with a junk rap diet and a snack food vocabulary. ''It's fingerlickin' good,'' yell ADROCK, MCA and MIKE D as they eat away at your hearts with their humor and nibble on your ears with their sound. When they're not jamming down some wacked out Sugarhill groove, the Beasties are littering their songs with alliteration and wit.

If there's a theme bugging Check Your Head, then it's the sonic collision of their two previous albums. Licensed to Ill (winter 1986/87) gave us Beastie Boys as Marx Brothers playing Led Zeppelin. Hard and heavy, and bathed in echo chamber, it was the only viciously teenage rebel yell of the '80s to hit home around the world, and sounded like nothing before.

Paul's Boutique (July, 1989) was probably the most scrambled album rap has ever thrown up, giving the genre a mystique and variety whilst retaining the heavyweight impact, rhymes and humor.

Check Your Head allows a more vivid sneak at what goes on in their fervent musical imaginations. Thanks to the tireless fingers of KEYBOARD MONEY MARK, the album has more organ than Mike Tyson. Hammond sounds go rolling through old Leslie speakers to the art's content. Check Your Head takes the impact of Licensed to Ill and the brilliance of Paul's Boutique and progresses from there. Indulge in it and you'll find a speeding wheel of wonder flickering by, the Ron Carter buzz of the bass, the ridiculous Blue Nun wine ad, the Bob Dylan sample, the self-styled Beastie language, the wicked whining rap, and a maturity to the music that belies their uncontrollable energy.

If you want formula, then let's say good-bye right now. Check Your Headwas written and produced in the band's own G-SON studio in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. The sound of Atwater Village is the sound of skateboard wheels hitting half-pipes, basketballs hitting wooden dance floor, and Beastie Boys hit the noise.

Although the Eastern Bloc has crumbled and the Western World has all bedded Madonna since the last Beastie Boys album, Mike D is confident the time between recordings benefits both band and listener.

''We recorded Check Your Head throughout the whole of 1991,'' he says. ''We just put a load of 2'' tape on and jammed, we turned those jams into songs. We recorded it live as a four-piece band because we wanted this shit to be fat in both sound and attitude. We went for a whole nine of fatness and I think we tipped the scales. ''

Sprawling across 20 very different tracks, Check Your Head is special. At a time when streamlined, clear-cut transparent music is the first order of the day, THE BEASTIE BOYS have made an album that will make Kasey Kasem's face melt.

Check Your Head and you'll understand, the BEASTIE BOYS have their chrome in your mouth and their fingers on the trigger. Swallow it whole.