I’m a huge Balkan Beat Box fan, but I’m forced to concede that their new album, Blue Eyed Black Boy, falls just short of awesome.
War Again, the best track from the album:

For the uninitiated, BBB is the best frenzied folk-world-klezmer-Mediterranean-Balkan-Middle Eastern-hip-hop-etc band out there. Their second release, Nu Med, garnered them a considerable amount of critical acclaim, building on the frenetic beauty of their first eponymous release. Blue Eyed Black Boy, however doesn’t build past Nu Med. It feels basically the same, if a little more pop-y.
The new album has some great horn section and it sounds a little more radio-ready, more polished than previous releases, but to their detriment. The best tracks on the album, War Again and Move It, are catchy enough and totally enjoyable, but there’s a sense that BBB is holding back.
The music still has the implicit Jewishness that the two previous albums had. The band’s lineup is ever-rotating, but it has at times included a whole lot of Israeli MCs as well as Sway Machinery’s chazanut rocker Jeremiah Lockwood. The mish-mash of styles, all from places with historical Jewish communities feels like an extended family album in music.
It’s not a bad album. If you want to get into BBB for the first time, this is fine, but Nu Med is better. And if you liked BBB before, you’ll probably like this too.