both a conscious and natural effort, adding "it's just something we all really wanted to do", while Greentree himself described the album as "like a bird without all the fleshy bits and feathers." Stylus Magazines Derek Miller called the album a "testimony to balls-out astral tribalism" which features "some of the more singular 'alt-pop music' of the last decade", while doing so "in a veiled manner that never shows its hand until you’re four songs deep and still stuck in thought about the first.” Songs "The Beta Band Rap" opens the album and consists of three distinctive parts, opening with a spirited marching band introduction that segues into a rap section whose lyrics recount the band's history to date in detail, describing the band's formation, signing to Parlophone subsidiary label Regal Records and "drinking champagne at EMI". It was described by writer Stuart Berman as "actually equal parts barbershop-quartet serenade, proto-'Lazy Sunday' faux b-boy braggadocio, and Elvis pelvis thrusts." "It's Not Too Beautiful" follows, starting with pulsating guitars that push "a wished whirlpool sound" and followed by Mason's multitracked vocals. According to one review, "the song seems to take flight on the whirl of a helicopter, with blades blunted and made soft by the dander in the air." "Simple Boy" is a quieter song, backed by atmospheric changes. Described as a country rock ramble, "Round the Bend" is among the more focused songs. Mason's very specific lyrics are displayed as internal monologue as he recalls a disappointing night. He blends simple thoughts about drinking and dinner with travel fantasies about pyramids, opinions on the Beach Boys' Wild Honey and "moments of deep awkwardness". A jam of both organic and electronic elements, "Dance O'er the Border" is heavy on repetition and percussion and lacks a melody for the first four minutes, while featuring lyrics that forgo verses, choruses and rhyming in favour of Mason spoken, stream-of-consciousness comments. Miles Bowe named it the album's best song and the band's fifth best overall, saying that although not "very representative of the Beta Band's sound", it "does a pretty great job" of anticipating LCD Soundsystem. "Brokenupadingdong" and "Smiling" were compared to Julian Cope by writer Tom Ewing, who described them as "ramshackle campfire clapalong jams with a powerful communal momentum" that partly recall Amon Duul I, Can and late 1980s British house music. Between them is "Number 15", a frustrated song with an emphasis