Earlier this year, in an interview published shortly after the release of Stay Home, Beets principles Juan Wauters and Jose Garcia revealed that the writing for their next album had already been completed. This is far from a surprising development in the world of garage-rock, where most bands worth their weight in Nuggets compilations are prone (or, at the very least, prepared) to release two albums, five 7" and 12" singles, and maybe even a tour-only cassette as a forget-me-not in the span of about nine months. Being prolific is not a minor miracle in garage so much as it is muscle memory; the defining trait of this style of music is that it's not incredibly difficult to compose.
This is especially true of the Beets, a band who tours the Continental 48 in a station wagon, whose cover art is exclusively drawn with crayons. You get the impression that a Beets song takes about as much time to write and record a song as it takes Beets album artist Matthew Volz to run to Walgreens and get a 64-color box of Crayolas. What would probably be considered an insult to most other bands is part and parcel to the Beets' charm.
Much like their heroes Ramones-- a band namedropped in Howard Stern's brief on-air appraisal of the band-- the Beets are long on attitude. On their debut, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool, the album's title served equally well as a mission statement. When the production quality of your record is equivalent to a damp fast food napkin, attitude is pretty much all you have to go on. Spit in the Face was intriguing and enjoyable because it was a lot like watching a band playing through a garage door made of opaque glass: You couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, but you wanted to be a part of it anyway.
Let the Poison Out continues the band's gradual crawl out of the basement, and with the added sonic clarity comes the best collection of songs Wauters has written. Granted, the chords haven't ventured into jazzy diminished sevenths-- nor has the band decided to use a full drum kit to play its songs-- but the album showcases the Beets as a band every bit as off-the-cuff as it has been, though far more distinctive. With Wauters' voice pushed to the forefront, the bratty scream-singing of Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool and Stay Home makes way for heavily accented-- and, in the case of "Wipe It Off", intentionally broken-- English, something undetected on past Beets records, where the vocals either sat among or were buried underneath the thudding drums. In general, Wauters is working with a broader songwriting palette. Adding to various Beets traditions-- the tune sung in Spanish ("Preso Voy"), the loopy, experimental interlude ("Eat No Dick 3")-- he boasts a love for stream-of-consciousness imagery on opener "You Don't Want Kids to be Dead", offers sage advice on "Doing as I Do", and plays a lovelorn game of "this or that" on "I Don't Know".
The record also marks the addition of drummer Chie Mori, whose plaintive anti-harmonies augment Wauters' singing in a way that recalls a less irksome version of the Moldy Peaches. The boy-girl vocals do more than just add to the pop bliss of the record's more infectious moments: "Friends of Friends" is made rowdier by Mori's contributions, while her backing vocals on quasi-psychedelic closer "Walking to My House" give the song a skewed and eerie vibe. The Beets' newfound focus on recording quality could have easily highlighted shortcomings, but instead, the band found a way to broaden its sound by recruiting a member who exponentially adds to its worth.
