Album: Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (Capital)

The eighth studio album from the Beastie Boys comes after a long lay-off made even longer by Adam "MCA" Yauch's treatment for cancer.

But there's no radical new direction: HSCP2 might have been lifted out of any period in the trio's history from 1990 onwards – with jubilant old-skool synth squiggles and absurdist rhymes about the sort of topics nobody but the Beasties would think of covering.

The now-obligatory nod to their thrash-punk past is present and correct and there's some glorious reggae noir on the Santogold collaboration. But hip-hop is still their home turf, and "Too Many Rappers" (featuring Nas) is a gleeful take-down of the laziness of the current generation of MCs.

Thankfully, the one thing missing this time is any yawnsome Tibetan Buddhist interlude. As for Yauch, he's sounding in fine fettle. A welcome addition to the Beastie canon, and if it gets them back out on the road, it'll be an absolutely precious one.