Damon Albarn once boasted that for each Blur album he selected a different drug to aid his creative process, and if you listened closely the personality and desired effect of each drug were reflected in the writing, structure and pace of each album.
The Chemical Brothers obviously take a lot of drugs.
At the Manchester big beater's shows, Tom Rowland's neo-hippie locks sway from his perpetually nodding head while Ed Simons skittishly gallivants around the stage, trying to excite a similarly temulent crowd.
Their album artwork, vibrant Warholian variations on random images, probably only makes sense with a clouded mind.
They also happened to name their group the Chemical Brothers.
But the real give-away to the duo's indulgences lies in the music where, put to the Albarn test, each of their albums reveal an influence of its own.
Announcing their presence with "Exit Planet Dust," Rowland and Simons were giddy kids with big toys, pumping out some block-rocking beats, not fully knowing how far they could push their music without going over the top. The failure to breach that boundary, due maybe to a distracted pacifism coupled with a lack of pecuniary funding, probably would place it as their cannabis album.
"Dig Your Own Hole," the sophomore release, didn't push the limits either. It demolished them. Laying down deceptively primal beats wrenched in anxiety, each song teasingly escalated with a looping, manic hypnosis. With beats flaring like distorted chainsaws and dropping like bombs on "Setting Sun," the Chemical Brothers engulfed Noel Gallagher in a blaze of insanity straight out of "Apocalypse Now." We'll call it their speed album.
The third album, christened "Surrender," did just that, giving in to the sweaty, sexy clubs of the rave scene with a jones for some '70s funk. The Chemical Brothers were never this friendly, abandoning the distant whisper of Mazzy Star for Queen Freak Missy Elliot and the warped sensitivity of Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue. Apparently, the Brothers had jumped on the latest sensation and taken a liking for ecstasy.
On "Come With Us," the fourth album of original material, the two DJs seem to be absorbed in two enhancements: hallucinogens and caffeine. The result is an album crafted with ambitious, extravagant soundscapes imbedded with intricate nuances, but strongly focused, unlike "Surrender."
The Chemical Brothers, like the majority of premiere cut chemists, made careers from throwing down a bunch of loaded singles, compiling them and calling the product an album. But "Come With Us" strives for cohesiveness without sacrificing ingenuity.
The album begins with a trio of sharp, booming tracks. "It Began in Afrika" plays like an electronic issue of National Geographic. The Chemical Brothers mix African drumming and two competing pulses with computer manipulations resembling the calls of the wild.
"Galaxy Bounce" rides the typical Chemical Brothers frame of an elastic bass-line and intertwined samples of male aggression and vixen caressing mixed beyond any recognition by the song's finale.
The title track tries to create tension through a tight beat and strings, but a sinister voice, who tells us to "Come with us" and "Leave our earth behind," borders on bombastic pretentiousness.
"Star Guitar" does a modest job attempting to create Daft Punk French house grooves, but it's not until the star guitar actually is delivered on the whimsical "Hoops" that "Come With Us" hints at its ambition past club anthems.
|
|
|
Similarly breezy, the Beth Orton collaboration, "The State We're In" sounds like Sinead O'Connor fronting an Air cover band, but the Chemical Brothers create the ambience with reserved flutes and lethargic beats that allows Orton to seduce.
The Chemical Brothers extract the best performance from Richard Ashcroft since his early Verve albums on "The Test," a near eight-minute journey that meanders through the full catalogue of the Brothers' abilities. Ashcroft bellows with a conviction that allows him to sell lyrics trite from most other mouths.
The Chemical Brothers are not to be upstaged, though. The album's strongest tracks are those in which the duo let the music speak for itself. Trumpets and a melodious bass-line dip in and out of the amorphous "Denmark," while "My Elastic Eye" weds hip-hop with electronic arena rock better than "Music: Response."
The Chemical Brothers know what they're doing, especially under the influence.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
