After the success of their first three albums, the Beastie Boys continued expanding their sound palette with Ill Communication, with jazz samples, punk interludes,
electronic filters, and lots of humor.  Trimming out the short joke tracks of Check Your Head, the group shows more focus on playing around with the rap components, with the members playing the instruments for a chunk of their backbeats, letting a couple of tracks run on into abrupt cut-offs, building the cop-drama-homage music video for “Sabotage”, and bringing in a handful of guests (including Suicidal Tendencies’ Amery Smith, A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip, and Biz Markie).

Despite the sharp twists in style from song to song, the album keeps a chill flow intact, largely due to the persistent personalities of the three MCs, even across the instrumental tracks.  The heavy use of filters on their voices does get tiresome at times, but the amount of other effects going on at the same time helps distract from it, to a degree.  Though it would be four years before the next album emerged (bringing Mixmaster Mike in to replace DJ Hurricane), the diversification over the eight years between their frat rap debut and this LP shows how much their hunger for fun helped them develop.

Here’s the alternate cover art.