Ipecac Recordings
2007
Can I Keep This Pen?
About This Album
While these Long Island girls have rudimentary skills on the mics, Beastie Boys disciples Northern State illustrate that they know how to have fun in the studio on their third CD as they bounce around from genre to genre, intersecting indie rock, electro, and hip-hop with ease. If you could mesh Luscious Jackson's Fever in Fever Out with the Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill this album would be the result. It's a balancing act between alt-rock grooves with sweet harmonies and booty bouncing bass with old-school raps. In similar Beasties fashion, the girls drop simple, intersecting rhymes, and never take themselves too seriously. Their lack of pretension is a huge redeeming factor, making up for the fact that they ultimately don't have much to say. Hesta Prynn, Spero, and Sprout blab repetitively about dancing, cooking, dumb boys, organizing the fridge, and random mundane blither. But it doesn't matter. They're just having fun and it shows. The production is top-notch, especially when Ad-Rock dusts off his SP-12 (which was presumably in storage since the release of the Beastie's instrumental The Mix Up) and lays the hammer down on a beat reminiscent of Biggie's "Hypnotize.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,8,9 and 10)

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