Steve Mason: Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time

With the benefit of hindsight, Steve Mason claims that his depressive mood swings sabotaged the Beta Band’s career. In 1999, he declared that their debut album was “a crock of shit.” Even an exasperated chairman of EMI publicly wondered, “What the fuck is going on?”

After the guts of decade in the darkness, Mason’s third solo album is as good as anything delivered by those wayward Scottish oddballs. Amidst the shimmering pop, blissed-out dub and heartwarming ballads – all the more uplifting given Mason’s troubled back story – on this sprawling collection of 20 tracks, there’s a clip of Tony Blair talking about Libya and the screeching tyres of a Formula One race. It takes a while for its wayward charms to gel, but Monkey’s Minds In The Devil’s Time is well worth sticking with. ‘A Lot Of Love’ sees his stoned choir boy croon soar soulfully on a touching rumination on love, loneliness and the meaning of life. Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time is as majestically moving as the Beta Band in their prime. Steve Mason writes bug-eyed pop with a big heart.