Chemical Brothers-Come With Us, possibly classic.

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This is a bizarre album in the sense that first it seemed disappointing to me, I mean it didn't feel as epic or new as any of the other Chems albums, not at all really. And for a while I kind of neglected it, but I'm starting to think now that it's a better work than Surrender, which the more I listen to it tends to be too epic, too concerned with songs and grandeur rather than just good club tunes.

First of all Denmark and It Began in Afrika are absolute filthy house classics, Denmark in particular is an amazing tune. Come With Us (the song)is pretty unlike anything else released recently, impossible to classify, and pretty compelling aswell.

So this may not have been a great year for albums, but Come With Us has steadily grown on me, apart from the Test I think it's a pretty great album. My Elastic Eye is pretty top drawer too. That one that sounds like Strawberry Fields makes the album have two duds on it but it's forgivable.

The Beth Orton track is infinitely better than her track on Surrender, if they hadn't made one of my favourite songs ever in "Where Do I Begin" I'd be praising it alot more highly aswell.

Well? What do you think?

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I think you're finally beginning to make sense as far as this album is concerned, although I still don't know why people hate "The Test" so much.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:17 (twenty-three years ago)

i still completely love it, everythings so simple and vibrant and theres just wonderful thick breaks all over it, i think its one of the most most amazingly produced records i own

the secret to enjoying the test is to not treat it as a dance track but as a sort of pretty swaying muddy comedown thing it works great, it doesnt have the forward propulsion of the monster fucking songs on the rest of the album

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:19 (twenty-three years ago)

also you forgot hoops, hoops is fucking tight!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:20 (twenty-three years ago)

my elastic eye is everything good about drukqs in four minutes, all the skitterish xylophone and like faraway whalesong shit, but then they lay on THE WORLDS NASTIEST BASS!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:22 (twenty-three years ago)

also it has that weird talking guitar thing like from the simpsons episode

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:23 (twenty-three years ago)

The problem with The Test is the way he goes 'Have I passed, the acid test?' over and over at the end, in that annoying 'Singer Thinking He's Just Said Something Really Clever And Inventive And Trying To Milk It For As Much As He Possibly Can' style - cf. Kelly Jones on more or less any Stereophonics track you care to mention. Tune's decent enough, but that bit... grr...

And can someone explain to me how Star Guitar is meant to be any good? Perhaps I am prejudiced by the ceaseless blathering about the 'amazing video' - it's a Eurostar. It goes through Penge. How is this 'amazing'?

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Simon is Hoops the one with the bassline like Hip-Hop by Dead Prez, I have a copied copy. It is I think.

(I never said this was crap I don't think, just before I said that Denmark was far and away the best track whereas now though I still think this, I'm feeling some of the rest too)

It is the Chems doing subtlety, which is interesting in itself

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:25 (twenty-three years ago)

i think my fav track too is denmark though, that one guitar break at 2:35 is maybe their greatest moment ever!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha that has to be the moment, it's like the most intense thing on the album. Absolute genius.

But that Beth Orton track, I really like that too.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:29 (twenty-three years ago)

hoops is the 'here i go round again again again' sort of acoustic electro sounding one, my elastic eye is the one with DEAD PREZ STYLE FUCKING HUGE FLAT BASS!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:30 (twenty-three years ago)

i have to say the beth orton track and pioneer skies are my least favorites, i love her song from dig yr own hole too though so its weird but this one is so weak and dido-y

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:31 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah i just listened and it only gets good when its turning into DENMARK!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah well the one from Dig Your Own Hole is absolutely amazing, the part after it's kicked in where the riff kind of kicks back in and does a little solo and it all explodes off once more.

Oh yeah well then Hoops is what I thought My Elastic Eye was, god that one is great too.

it only gets good when it's turning into denmark

But the outro is classic enough, 3 minutes of vague guitar stuff is worth it for the great finale. It's annoying, if they weren't the Chemical Brothers, Denmark would get played in clubs all the time. They need some aliases.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:36 (twenty-three years ago)

it cant be said enough how incredible the title track is with that amazing sparkly head nod device like the short keyboard flourish all the early nineties dre singles had (im not really describing it well enough, it first comes in at about 1:10 so you tell me what its called). also the violins sound super crisp in my headphones!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:43 (twenty-three years ago)

is it a 303??

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:44 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm listening now, I like the kind of eerie ringing at the back of the mix.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh the two really quick serious sounding kind of keyboard stabs? I don't know what it is either.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

no no not the scratch bit haha

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:57 (twenty-three years ago)

I didn't mean a scratch. Does it even stay in for long?

The Beth Orton track 4.25=liftoff, absolutely euphoric. I hate the test cos of the stupid lyrics about acid aswell.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:03 (twenty-three years ago)

its the kind of shimmering looping bit, like this constantly ascending and descending bouncy metallic riff

ronan why are you judging a dance track by its lyrics, do you write for pfork now??

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:09 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a great album. FAR better than Surrender, which I found pretty dissapointing. "Hoops" is an amazing and really original track as well. Would I be on my own if I said "Star guitar" is the best single they ever put out?

― Michael Bourke, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:10 (twenty-three years ago)

man i wish the chems would do an adam f and start making beats for redman and ll

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:11 (twenty-three years ago)

no star guitar is pretty but this is the group who did BLOCK ROCKIN BEATS

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 12:13 (twenty-three years ago)

bah Block Rockin Beats got tiresome real fast. "Star Guitar" has that mindblowing video too.

― Michael Bourke, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:18 (twenty-three years ago)

fuck now i'm upset that i didn't burn a copy of this when i had the chance. i was probably going thru my seasonal sad indie period or something. i remember thinking that the "hoops" hook was THE SHIT tho. and starguitar is great too, yes.

― mitch lastnamewithheld, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

re Hoops; I love it when the chems do quirky, offbeat stuff. You get this acoustic guitar refrain and then it breaks down into an electro beat. It's mad and it's a really good smokers track as well as being a dancefloor burner. "Lost in the k-hole" from DYOH was kinda like that. Not that it sounded like "Hoops" but just that it didn't sound like the Chems and was really odd but pretty sounding.

― Michael Bourke, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:29 (twenty-three years ago)

You crazy kids have made me want to listen to this CD again and completely reevaluate my opinion of it (which currently resides at 'enjoyable but disappointing' and can only improve). It didn't hit me as immediately and viscerally as DYOH (which I traded an early press of Sgt. Peppers' with all the inserts for when DYOH came out on double LP -- I still feel like I came out the winner on that one), and I didn't have to work hard to like it and then when I finally did like it I was hopelessly in love as I did with Surrender. I think "It Began In Afrika" was the first CD I bought since 9/11 if that has any significance (and it probably doesn't), and it hasn't grown on me as much as it should though I know it will further. Senor Trife is so damn right about "My Elastic Eye", and along those lines I'd say "Star Guitar" is if not everything great then 90% of what's great about Orbital's "The Girl With the Sun In Her Head" ramped up to 45 RPM (and I don't hear any guitar; false advertising=classic!). Oh and the video is not just a Eurostar going through Penge if you pay attention to the beats and how they work with the visuals.

Simon: you ever hear their remix of "Bring the Pain"? It's more Leave Home-sounding than all electro-crazy like Come With Us is but they do some fucked up cutups of Meth's voice at the end of the song.

― Nate Patrin, Monday, 9 September 2002 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

nate are you thinking of the prodigy mix because thats ill but i didnt know there was a chems one too!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:02 (twenty-three years ago)

No, the Chems did a remix too. They were both on the "Release Yo 'Delf" single (UK issue?).

(I'd've probably got into Come With Us a lot quicker if "Base 6" was on it. "Star Guitar"'s b-side, it crams a half-dozen hooks into one song and it works!)

― Nate Patrin, Monday, 9 September 2002 13:06 (twenty-three years ago)

oh yeah i was thinking of release yo delf not bring the pain

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the B side call H.I.A. off Come With Us.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Fun exercise: Listen to the first ten seconds of "Galaxy Bounce". Then listen to the first ten seconds of ODB's "Got Your Money".

― Nate Patrin, Monday, 9 September 2002 13:21 (twenty-three years ago)

thatd be fun even without a theorized connection between them!!

― simon trife (simon_tr), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Because the vocal is all over the track and it's not a conventional dance lyric anyway, that's the problem.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm glad there's someone else (ie. Mr. Trife) who thinks that "Block Rockin' Beats" is fantastic despite being so formulaic (secret: it's fantastic because they *perfected* the formula!)

I haven't heard "Come With Us" apart from the singles, but it sounds like I need to rectify that.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Am i the only one that doesnt like so much the trax you all seem to love? Hoops is boring and the guitar in Denmark almost ruins it all. There is nothing in it that can reach the feet of Star Guitar(except It Began In Afrika). The rest sounds too muhc like filler. Everytime i try to remember at least one aspect of Pioneer Skies and Falaxy Bounce i just cant, nothing at all

― vic (vicc13), Monday, 9 September 2002 14:57 (twenty-three years ago)

"Block Rockin' Beats" is heavy and amazing.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 September 2002 15:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Star Guitar is in my opinion their best song ever, absolutely incredible. haven't seen the video, but the song has literally given me goosebumps. beautiful beyond words.

in my humble opinion that is

― pip, Monday, 9 September 2002 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Apparently there's a live track on a Japanese "Come With Us" sampler that features "Star Guitar" mixed liberally with New Order's "Temptation". I've been unable to track down an mp3.

I think "Star Guitar" is their second best track after "Block Rockin' Beats". However, if I could find a proper instrumental of "Life is Sweet" there would be no contest.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

(Their best track is the live trancy version of "Setting Sun", followed by "The Private Psychadelic Reel", "It Doesn't Matter", "Star Guitar", "The Test", "Hey Boy Hey Girl", "Block Rockin' Beats", "Loops Of Fury" and "Where Do I Begin?")

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:21 (twenty-three years ago)

You're forgetting "Life Is Sweet" and "Alive Alone".

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 9 September 2002 22:24 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was crap. I liked the way the "Here i go round again...", hoops track, liek it starts well with the break beat biut then when it diverges into 4/4 kicks over the top it just sounds awfully contrived and crap. the rest of the album wasn't even worth listening to. Surrender wasn't much better though . kinda like genre: painting by numbers, if ya know what I mean.

Didn't have the energy of Dig your own hole which is the only album i still feel was good.

dsico

― dsico (dsico), Monday, 9 September 2002 23:21 (twenty-three years ago)

The live version of Private Psychedelic Reel is so fantastic, is it over? is it? this time? NO!

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 10 September 2002 08:15 (twenty-three years ago)

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