You Had It Coming

Mojo - "...The most visceral, spunky-stinky instrumental album Jeff Back has ever made....this is peerless playing ability made over into pools of bodily fluids." Q - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Finds him digging even deeper into the harsh techno terrain that livened up parts of 1999's comeback album, WHO ELSE!....There's life in the old dog yet." Entertainment Weekly - "...Techno is still very much on his mind...but this forward-thinking veteran now sounds comfortable melding his adventurous fret work with studio wizardry..." - Rating: B+ Rolling Stone - 3 out of 5 stars - "...Working in the comfortable techno-funk rock vein he's been tinkering with for the last few years, Beck is as agile and muscular a craftsman as he's ever been..." CMJ - "...Beeck's hippest album since 1976's groundbreaking WIRED..." Rolling Stone (2/15/01, p.75) - 3 out of 5 stars - "...Working in the comfortable techno-funk rock vein he's been tinkering with for the last few years, Beck is as agile and muscular a craftsman as he's ever been..." Q (5/01, p.102) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Finds him digging even deeper into the harsh techno terrain that livened up parts of 1999's comeback album, WHO ELSE!....There's life in the old dog yet." Entertainment Weekly (2/9/01, p.78) - "...Techno is still very much on his mind...but this forward-thinking veteran now sounds comfortable melding his adventurous fret work with studio wizardry..." - Rating: B+ Mojo (3/01, pp.102-3) - "...The most visceral, spunky-stinky instrumental album Jeff Back has ever made....this is peerless playing ability made over into pools of bodily fluids." CMJ (2/26/01, p.27) - "...Beeck's hippest album since 1976's groundbreaking WIRED..."

As with WHO ELSE, Jeff Beck's previous album, YOU HAD IT COMING finds the venerable axeman coaxing wildly imaginative squalls of noise over a rhythm section constructed from samples and tape loops, mostly with a techno beat (although the concluding "Suspension" is so laid back it's practically a ballad). There's a nod to his blues roots with a nicely fractured version of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'", but most of the rest of the songs find him performing in a vaguely modal framework.
Beck's dilemma has always been finding musicians capable of keeping up with him, largely because there really aren't any. He hasn't really solved that problem here, but it's nonetheless entertaining to hear him tread water.|