Chemical Brothers - Further

In preparation for Further, I listened to the first three Chemical Brothers albums: Exit Plant Dust, Dig Your Own Hole and Surrender. In doing so I remembered just how much I enjoyed their early works, how intricate and forward thinking they were at the time of their releases, and how much "of the decade" they sound in retrospect.

After Surrender, though, my love for all things Chemical began to wane. Maybe I was growing up and the Chemicals weren't, or maybe they were and I just didn't like it. Either way, we had a falling out. I was always glad they were around and hadn't gone all Moby (read: electronic easy listening) or turned completely electro crap on everyone, but Come With Us,Push The Button or We Are The Night illicited mostly negative responses. And that's not even taking into considering their novelty song: 'The Salmon Dance'! If that's not a sign a band should think about retirement, I don't know what is.

Thankfully their seventh album contains some of the greatness found on their initial albums. It's also a return to pure Chemical Brothers, with the guest singers being relegated to the footnotes. 'Snow' and 'Escape Velocity' are perfect examples of the psychedelic 60s influence electronic opuses they're famous for. 'Dissolve' is an excellent electro-rock tune in the vein of 'Let Forever Be', and 'Horse Power' gets a little grungy and dark, more like their initial recordings.

However, the album is let down by the "lighter" material, such as 'Another World', 'Wonders of the Deep' and 'K+D+B'. These tracks meander across your eardrums and are gone and forgotten. They lack the rhythmic strength of the better tracks. The Chemical Brothers may be trying to go further, but perhaps they should stick with the past.

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