In the past few years, once-superstar veteran dance acts have found themselves faced with a virtually no-win proposition. They are dogged by the death of rave culture and bloated media expectations, and many consider their previous successes as major mainstream players in the states to have had a big hand in the perceived failure of electronic music. In some cases, the derision is justified-- the Prodigy and Fatboy Slim each recently issued albums that fell far short of their ambitious goals-- but usually, artists have simply gone through the same growing pains suffered by veterans in any genre.
Of all the mid-90s dance crossovers, few are as vilified by the cult of progression as the Chemical Brothers, who never seemed particularly invested in electronic music's cult of progression in the first place. When they did act as pacesetters, it was for the oft-derided big beat (on their earliest recordings and debut album, Exit Planet Dust) or the prescient "back to the future" of the underrated Surrender, which predated and perhaps put in motion an eventual acid house revival. What the Chemical Brothers were interested in was bridging the gap between techno, house, and hip-hop by marrying the most immediately pleasing elements of all three. And incidentally, they weren't bad at it.
On their day, they're still quite good, but superstardom also landed them in the precarious and potentially lazy pattern of presenting albums with what seemed like a preconceived template-- a handful of breakbeat- or acid-inspired tracks, a comedown psych-rock crossover, a female-vocaled comedown track, and contributions from Britrock's reigning royalty. The band seemed fenced in by these expectations, eventually crafting collaborative tracks that seemed to have the guest's talents in mind more than the Chemicals' themselves. Unsurprisingly, the duo's fifth album, Push the Button, is at its best when it avoids these now-familiar pitfalls. Unfortunately, it's mostly front-loaded with these high-profile collaborations, one of which (the tepid "Left Right", featuring Anwar Superstar) is a career low.
Meanwhile, the Brothers have come full-circle on working with Northern England's most 60s-obsessed vocalists-- they're teamed here again with Charlatans and "Life Is Sweet" vocalist Tim Burgess. The result, "The Boxer", harks back to the duo's early B-Boy/techno days, as does the album's first single "Galvanize", recorded with Q-Tip. In both cases, however, the tracks are missing the ferocity and sub-bass rattlings of their earlier cousins, and here play second fiddle to unremarkable verses and nasally vocals. Far better is "Believe", on which Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke's rich, warm baritone serves as texture for the track while he provides a minimalist, almost mantra-like lyrical contribution rather than trying to crowbar a verse/chorus/verse structure onto a floorfiller. Elsewhere, rising indie pop group the Magic Numbers and Anna-Lynne Williams ably combine to fill Beth Orton's drony, narcotic role on "Close Your Eyes" and "Hold Tight London", respectively.
Of course, as they were on 2002's Come With Us, the Chemical Brothers tend to find the best results when they focus on atmospheric, buzzing instrumentals. That 2002 record hit greater peaks-- nothing here is as engaging as "Star Guitar" or "My Elastic Eye"-- but more than a few tracks come close, including the playful, old-school hop of "The Big Jump", the post-punk-meets-breakbeats collision of "Come Inside", and "Surface to Air", which recalls the astral, rave-quoting "Star Guitar" and ends the album on its highest note.
And yeah, like the whole of Surrender and the best of Come With Us, these tracks are effective, delightful exercises in cultivating dance's past, but the Chemical Brothers have always been best when cherrypicking from others and creating highlight reels. If I were in a selfish mood, it would be tempting to wish a continued retreat from the spotlight for the Brothers, granting them the freedom to focus on creating the dynamic dance tracks they're still clearly capable of, rather than the merely decent pop songs that others are increasingly coming to expect from them.
