When the duo of Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and the Beastie Boys' touring drummer Amery "AWOL" Smith released their self-titled debut in 1997, it seemed to be little more than a one-off Beastie Boys side project. The album, built entirely from bizarre samples, lacked passion or emotion, and came up a bit thin. And its vinyl-only limited run served to add to the feeling of temporality that surrounded its release.

But for Simply Mortified, the duo have returned as an entirely different entity. In bringing keyboards into the mix, as well as adding vocals and a few live beats to balance out the sampled ones, Horovitz and Smith add a previously nonexistent, energetic quality to their sound. Actually, scratch that. They transform it completely. Their once sterile, lifeless sampler technology is noticeably absent, having been left in the dust to make room for a vibrant, swinging, Farfisa- and Nintendo-core affair. And the end result is far more entertaining than any other experiment in recent memory involving Grooveboxes, PortaSounds, and that 1960s MusicMaker organ in your uncle's attic.

Horovitz and Smith have made it one of their primary objectives-- if you'll forgive the cliche-- to make a record you can dance to. There are songs named after dance steps, like "The Scrappy" or "The Side to Side," the latter of which features the duo urging a dormant crowd, Bar Mitzvah-style, to do the step of the same name. The small child featured in "Yeah I Like BS" even asserts that BS2000 make her want to dance. Not like it's necessary to get out of your chair and boogie; the band just heavily advises it, that's all.

Simply Mortified feels kitschy, but simultaneously remains, somehow, new and refreshing. Horovitz's trademark Ad-Rock whine makes several appearances, and its first, in "Sick for a Reason," could mislead you into thinking you're hearing an obscure Beasties b-side. Fortunately, the song itself-- one of the best of the 20 here-- divorces itself nicely from the Beasties' usual rhymin' and stealin'. Here, Horovitz fully invests himself in the project, ditching his International Superstar Recording Artist status to simply become a member of a quirky basement band.

The duo even claims to have taught themselves how to play keyboards solely for the purpose of the album. This fact becomes painfully obvious in moments such as the final solo of "It Feels Like," which recalls a toddler noodling on the same five notes of his My First Synthesizer. But on most of the rest of the record, their keyboard explorations of simple melody and texture are festive and enjoyable. "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach is In)" sounds like a '60s game show theme fed through a Casio, and "New Gouda" like the soundtrack to a swing-dancing video game for Nintendo Power Pad, if one existed.

Occasionally, Horovitz and Smith get so goofy as to seem pointless. "Flossin' at Lawson" is a pretty transparent excuse to incorporate a sample from a Japanese film they obviously found amusing, as there isn't enough in the melody to sustain interest or support the track on its own. But at other times, their silliness works to their advantage, like on "Wait a Minute," which recounts Fabio's legendary amusement park incident through the mouth of a juvenile Brooklynite: "It's fun here on the rollercoaster/ I saved you a place/ But when I tried to talk to you/ A bird flew in my face."

"Dansk Party," a straightforward instrumental with an excellent 3/4 groove and one of the album's best melodies, closes Simply Mortified in a smooth and appropriate fashion. And when it's all over, Simply Mortified, while not an excellent record, especially in terms of musical proficiency, proves itself one of the most enjoyable of the year so far.

-Spencer Owen