The Chemical Brothers - Born in the Echoes (2015)

Five years on from the surprisingly great Further, am I wrong to be excited for this, or does the tracklisting kind of make it look like a return to the "going for hit singles" approach that nerfed We Are the Night?

1 Sometimes I Feel So Deserted
2 Go feat. Q-Tip
3 Under Neon Lights feat. St. Vincent
4 EML Ritual feat. Ali Love
5 I’ll See You There
6 Just Bang
7 Reflexion
8 Taste of Honey
9 Born in the Echoes feat. Cate Le Bon
10 Radiate
11 Wide Open feat. Beck

good lord it's been 20 years since Exit Planet Dust

My first thought is it's kinda funny they have Beck on their record since they were originally called the Dust Brothers, until the Dust Brothers got them to change their name to the Chemical Brothers.

My second thought is I'd really like a new Dust Brothers album.

feat St. Vincent oh word??????

I think "Sometimes I Feel So Deserted" is great but I also enjoyed We Are The Night a lot

Will be listening to this one. Beck collab just might be ok. Maybe.

The Q-Tip song is a disappointment but I suspect we knew that.

Was excited to read about the Cate Le Bon feature, she's exactly who I'd hope guys who worked with Beth Orton in the 90s would be looping in many years later.

so the last one was supposed to be actually really good, or something? i only heard "escape velocity", which was pretty awesome. i stopped paying attention after "come with us". do i need to get on the last three albums?

You don't need to, but yeah...the most recent one before this one, Further, was actually quite nice.

Just as long as there's nothing as bad as The Salmon Dance on the new one

Further was pretty great because they ditched all the guest vocalists and awkward tangents into rap and folk music and just concentrated on doing something with the momentum and flow of their live set. This one on paper looks like a regression to those clunky mid-00s albums they put out, although I do like the song with Q-Tip.

Push The Button and We Are The Night are both eminently skippable, and 'Galvanize' has to be the single dorkiest major record of the 00s.

I think Further is probably their best album, not only does it bang hard like all CB albums to but it pays homage to stuff like Klaus Schulze, Neu!, and early Orbital, plus it's nice to see them for once make an album without being concerned with singles.

That said if this is roughly on the level of Push the Button that ain't too bad

I'm rediscovering old Chemical Brothers albums cos they keep turning up cheap at petrol stations! First 3 are great. "Come with us" is patchy but when its good its amazing. I think "push the button" is where I walked off the bus though I do like "Galvinise". I'll check the last one and this new one though. They certainly benefit from less guest stars on their albums.

This is probably my favorite of theirs since Come With Us tbh.

I should give Surrender another chance; I love "Hey Boy Hey Girl" and "Out of Control" but remember really HATING the rest of the album.

The Sunshine Underground is, like, their best song

We Are The Night is worth saving for the title-track and the monstrous banging 1-2 of 'burst generator' -> 'a modern midnight conversation'

I'm pretty favourably disposed to them at the moment after seeing them absolutely slay it at Glastonbury. They also played The Sunshine Underground and it was sort of perfect.

"Under the influence" is v good from Surrender too.

xpost "got glint" is good off Surrender too

Best Chem Bros tracks

1. Chemical Beats
2. Star Guitar
3. It Doesn't Matter
4. Hey Boy Hey Girl
5. Where Do I Begin?

"The Sunshine Underground" is decent but they dont really do it for me in full-on psych mode

We Are The Night is worth saving for the title-track and the monstrous banging 1-2 of 'burst generator' -> 'a modern midnight conversation'

Exactly, I like "Saturate" too, problem is that the guest spots are all pretty bad. Maybe I should give it another shot.

Surrender is worth another listen just because of how psychedelic the whole thing is, for an electronic album that is. At the time I remember it being a big deal that they were turning their backs on a genre they were instrumental in creating, though in hindsight abandoning Big Beat was the right move. Though TBH they went a bit too far in the opposite direction. The material on Come With Us is a little weaker I'd say but they definitely brought the bangers back. Come to think of it those first two albums and their DJ set still sound pretty damn good too, considering how late 90's it all is. I've been on a CB kick lately.

'Galvanize' has to be the single dorkiest major record of the 00s.

Nope.

It's a particularly European kind of feebleness that I will concede.

their DJ set still sound pretty damn good too

Are you referring to "Brothers Gonna Work It Out"? Yeah, its terrific. Not a bigbeat fest either, very acid-y and squelshy at times

1. Chemical Beats
2. Star Guitar
3. It Doesn't Matter
4. Hey Boy Hey Girl
5. Where Do I Begin?

A really solid list. I'd swap the last for "Life is Sweet" or "Loops of Fury" or "Elektrobank" maybe.

yeah that is a very difficult-to-argue-with top 5

shout-out to "The Private Psychedelic Reel", "Setting Sun", "Galaxy Bounce", "The Test" tho

Go is terrible

giving "further" a listen now ... yeah, this is pretty good. hearty IRL LOLs when the horse came in on "horse power"

my top 5 would have to include "it began in afrika"

their DJ set still sound pretty damn good too

"brothers gonna work it out" still sounds pretty damn awesome but "live at the social vol 1" and "in glint" are even better

"in glint" especially good

a lot of this new album sounds like dig your own hole b-sides. and that is a very good thing.

speaking of b-sides, has anybody heard this?!?

http://www.discogs.com/Chemical-Brothers-Electronic-Battle-Weapon-11/release/7172088

hearty IRL LOLs when the horse came in on "horse power"

YES...that got me too

BTW if you don't have the live album Don't Think you really really need it, it's to the Chems what Everything, Everything is to Underworld

The bonus compilation disc of all the Electronic Battle Weapons is better than any of their albums since the 90s.

yeah i was listening to it yesterday and thinking same

So I had never listened to the Chemical Brothers much, really only knowing their 90s radio hits (and honestly not really liking those hits that much), but I listened to this and "No Geography" recently and have become a bit obsessed with EML Ritual. What a catchy beat on this track.