Back in December of last year, we got an EP from a group called Anonymous Inc. as part of Fake Four’s Freecember series. The EP, Beta 1, was culled together from vaults of unreleased material that was recorded during the ‘00s. Now we get the next installment of the series, Beta 2.

If you’re not familiar with Anonymous Inc., this was the group started by Ceschi and his brother, David Ramos back in the ‘90s. They released their first and only album in 2001, but continued playing shows, rehearsing, and recording for much of the ‘00s, as the group expanded to include Max Heath on piano. As the group expanded, so did their style, taking their initial grunge style and bringing in influences of prog, hip hop, jazz, and psychedelic music. With the first Beta EP, the release felt more like a collection of demos, just giving you hints and ideas as to what the never-recorded second Anonymous Inc. album could have sounded like. Now, with Beta 2, which get a much more fully formed EP, which gives you an even clearer picture of what this group was all about in the ‘00s. There’s definitely an ‘80s feel to the songs here, as the group explores a prog-punk-ska sound that reminds me of XTC and Fishbone on a few of the songs. This, of course, is on top of thee more traditional ‘70s prog of groups like King Crimson that was already present on previous recordings. If that wasn’t enough, we also get a few glimpses of Ceschi’s ability as a rapper, with just a couple of moments where to starts in with his rapid-fire staccato rhymes. If this sounds like a lot to pack into a six-minute, 13-minute release, it is. This is one of the densest releases you’ll hear this year. The good news is that it’s also a lot of fun, so it won’t feel like work when you go back and listen to it through again and again, trying to wrap your head around everything that’s happening here.

Beta 1 was interesting enough to whet our appetites, but Beta 2 is where things really start to get good. This no longer feels like demos and song ideas, this sounds like recordings of a band that was really exploring some interesting intersections of style, and wrote and recorded some really good songs along the way.