The Chemical Brothers - Further FLAC album

This album is brilliant. My only complaint is interludes being cut short on the vinyl release. Still, sounds beautiful.

4.5 stars

This is a serious contender for "best Chemical Brothers album". After a few disappointing releases, they stepped back, re-evaluated and returned with an album chock full of warmth and loud as all hell. The opening track shows remarkable restraint, a trippy but well-balanced soundscape that follows seamlessly into the big hitter first single, 'Escape Velocity'. We're a full seven minutes into side A before we hear a single kick drum on this record, but when the drums come, they come big and hard. They hit you in the chest with a palpable *thud*.

The 2xLP version of this record has a slightly different mix and a very different master from the CD version. Escape Velocity demonstrates this clearly: whilst on the CD version, the drums and synths battle for headroom after each breakdown, on the vinyl the drums slip neatly under the echoing tail of the guitars and keys.

You might wonder why this is 4.5 and not 5 stars, if I'm gushing so much. Well, the truth is, I would have given this album five stars if it had stopped after side C. As we shift through the powerfully rich, distorted, solidly constructed pop tunes that are Another World, Dissolve and Horse Power, we land at the closest thing to a ballad we're likely to find on this record - the show-stopper, Swoon. And stop the show it should have done. At the end of a song that's not only powerfully emotive but has lyrics that form a near perfect bookend to opener 'Snow', I have this feeling in my heart that's not unlike the feeling I get at the very end of Dark Side of the Moon, or after the finale of Rent. A kind of ache, a wonderment at the catharsis that still echoes through my bones.

And then 'K+D+B' starts, and the moment is ruined.

Sure, it would have been a short record - just 41 minutes, ten minutes under the current runtime. But I've heard shorter yet equally complete records. You wouldn't call "Revolver" incomplete, yet it's just over 34 minutes in length.

With the double LP, it's a lot easier to pretend the last two tracks simply aren't there. You don't have to turn the record over and play them. But they are there, and that's what brings it down half a star.

PS the other albums in contention for "best ever" would be Come With Us and Surrender.

The Chemical Brothers back to their roots!
4 to 5 stars

They explored many styles since Surrender (1999). Come With Us, Push The Button, The Boxer, We Are The Night - So much tasteless albums and so few good tracks in my opinion - even if they are technically perfect.
I was very disappointed by their artistic choices since a while - but they are back in their original setting!

I personnally retained 5 tracks (an excellent score for an album):

Snow:
Nothing to add to 440lp's review - very trippy slow track, aerial voices like in Dig Your Own Hole - Where Do I Begin.

Dissolve:
Great song which could be put on Surrender - references to Sunshine underground, great soundscapes.

Horse Power:
When repetition kicks ass! A more Prodigy-style track, a pleasure for the ears, with drum room-style reverbs, references to Surrender - Music Response.

Swoon:
Oversaturated melody, trippy Daft Punk-style track.

K+D+B:
Long soundscapes, progressive with self-references to tracks like Surrender - The Sunshine Underground.

Wonders Of The Deep:
Excellent track witch perfectly fits to the end of the album and which can be compared to the track Push The Button - Surface To Air.

My conclusion:
I am very happy to hear them again. I thought they had given up and definitively yielded to an insipid and commercial style.
Welcome back to my Hall Of Fame Bro's!
A must have - run to your closest music store.

Four Star rating maybe?
The Chemical Brothers – Further 2 X LP ALBUM

Disc one: Track one snow sounds like Goldfrap-esque or maybe Air-ish… glitch hop. The vocals from snow fade seamlessly into track two escape velocity, which starts out like Boards Of Canada on full speed and sort of reminiscent of Korona from the 12” unreleased tracks from Boards Of Canada; the fast remake of color of the fire from Music Has The Right To Children. Escape velocity starts to build momentum and now takes on a fast Underworld-like quality with industrial noise glitching. This album reminds me of the Surrender album, both really take you on a journey. This is certainly a new, and quite good sounding, direction for The Chemical Brothers. Full texture and atmosphere.

Disc one side two: Track one another world starts out very unique again with sort of Goldfrap-esque vocals/sounds but taking on a very unique quality with skip beating… Genre bending with what sounds to me like certain elemental sounds from the disco era and breakbeat era somehow combined together. Starry guitars and cosmic like dub sounds are dominant… hell of a lot of reverb and noise and atmosphere. Then track two dissolve starts out with a nostalgic guitar-riff that sort of reminds me of a track off of the Sasha involver album but then dissolve morphs into an UNKLE sound or Verve sound with drum n bass or rock tones.

Disc two: Track one horsepower sounds like a variation of Hey boy Hey girl… sort of repetitious. Nice segway into the next track swoon; which has drowned out horns/guitars and a loopy skip dub with faded vocals… pops into a beat box jam. Sounds like a song warping it’s way through a tunnel. Cool sporadic female vocals. Definitely popish.

Disc two side two: K + D + B starts out like I hoped some part of this album would… sounds like The Dust Brothers. Takes on cool glassy vocal dubs…. and then it morphs back into The Chemical Brothers sound. Sounds like the first part of the Surrender album. Again with fast electronic glitch orchestras the last track wonders of the deep builds momentum and initiates with a really cool guitar solo then full-blown rock band. Fading in and out of electronic atmosphere and rock music. Fades out with glittered horns…. Tinkerbelle on crack.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

The track DISSOLVE: New electronic reinterpretation of psychedelic era rock.
The track HORSEPOWER: In my opinion, does not fit, and prevents a 5 star rating.