Is this a requiem for a scene?
The Chemical Brothers seem to be faced with a bit of a challenge, a
lukewarm response to their last studio LP, coupled with proclamations of the death of dance music by ill informed hysterical hacks, means for the first time they are releasing an LP, their 5th, to a largely indifferent audience. The Prodigy’s creative constipation, lasting almost 7 years, didn’t help matters, the end result being a small dry feculent turd on a paper plate presented to us with the smiling face of a small boy saying "look what I've just done". Fatboy Slim, never The Chemical Brothers' equal, continued to don his clown suit, merrily dancing away in the distance until he tumbled over a cliff.
Surely The Chemical Brothers could easily navigate their way to safety, they listen to the good stuff don't they?
What made them great to begin with was the talent they had for combining the visceral and the emotional, without sounding cheesy or migraine inducing. Their production was phenomenal; pressure altering bass lines and demented other worldly effects; machine funk of the highest order. Records played either side of theirs in clubs tended to sound a bit crap. But most important and what really stood them apart from their peers was their attention to detail: the intricate flourishes and the dynamic way they wired their tracks together. Tracks like "It Doesn't Matter", "Music Response" and "Got Glint" are templates for how to get a dance floor rocking.
"Push the button" is ultimately a frustrating LP because you can catch brief glimpses of this formula at work but the ideas on the whole are never fully realised and executed. You just wish that certain areas were expanded and pushed forward to their logical conclusions.
"Galvanise" is the opener: Middle Eastern strings (Holly Valance's "Kiss, Kiss" bizarrely sprang to mind), unbalanced bass, an ominous robotic voice threatening to "push the button", and Q-Tip calling the shots with a wake up call to galvanise! Is this a subliminal comment on the invasion of Iraq? It's a more than competent creation if a little predictable with the breakdowns, and doesn't in the end quite match the similar sounding "Get yourself high" with its rubber band bass and sweeping synths.
"The Boxer" is a stuttering old school house groove with familiar cohort Tim Burgess; it falls short due to its lack of anything resembling a song or hook.
"Believe" features vocals by Kele Okereke from media darlings Bloc Party, and its indicative of the LPs shortcomings as a whole. It's a linear techno stomp that sounds hackneyed, their sound has been stripped down to a beat and a few whoosh’s and bleeps, all the abstract funkiness, freshness and sheer sense of weirdness and joy of the past are absent. This continues into the next track, "Hold tight London" (great title), which consists of a generic tribal house groove and the odd disorientating effect. Its notable only for the presence of Anna-Lynne Williams from the little known US bands Trespassers William. Her voice is something to behold and it’s a missed opportunity to utilise it to the full. Check out their LP "Different stars" and in particular they're exquisite cover version of Rides' "Vapour trail".
"Come inside" heads back to "Block Rocking Beats" territory: a muscled up post punk bass line is spattered with nifty percussion, joined by a breathy female voice intoning "would you like to come inside?" and a breakdown that conjures up images of Enter the Dragon. Its serviceable enough but the sounds dated, even in today's climate for all things punk funk. "The Big Jump" suffers similar problems.
"Left right" is a plodding, bombastic political rap featuring Anwar Superstar, production wise it just doesn't cut it when compared to some of the freaked out Hip Hop around today.
"Close your eyes" is a collaboration with the upcoming The Magic Numbers. It treads similar ground to The Polyphonic Spree and is a rather delicate construction that sparkles and moves with guided grace.
The Baly-eric days of yore are revisited on "Shake, Break, Bounce", albeit with a dancehall raga vibe and a touch of, dare I say it, Grime.
"Marvo Ging" is all backward effects and twinkling guitars, it comes across like Penguin Cafe Orchestra playing at a barn dance where the moonshine has been spiked with LSD, a curious mixture indeed and I'm completely flummoxed as to whether its good or bad.
"Surface to air" is the highpoint, and the most euphoric thing on the LP. Starting off with an oscillating electronic pulse and a croaking electronic vocal, it slowly rises to a peak with a metronome beat and a patchwork of criss-crossing guitars and vocal snatches. It recalls in places the sun-kissed layering of Ulrich Schnauss, the rhythms of New Order and the guitar chords of The Strokes. Capturing that 3am moment of pill popping transcendence perfectly, it's a worthy addition to the mind scrambling post-psychedelic grooves The Chemical Brothers have been experimenting with on their last couple of Albums. The only gripe is that it stops so abruptly, but this could suggest there's a longer more wigged out version in the offering.
It would be foolish and wrong to write them off on this showing especially since they have fairly recently produced the classic "The Golden Path" and continue to fire off urgent tracks in the form of their white label Electronic Battle Weapon series. But all is most definitely not well with their sound and you feel some sort of evolutionary leap needs to occur to prevent them from disappearing down the memory hole that has recently claimed so many of their fellow travellers.