The Chemical Brothers
Come With Us

THE REVIEW

After listening to "Exit Planet Dust" to exhaustion, which still sounds new today. After giving away "Dig Your Own Hole" because I couldn't stand it, with "Black Rockin' Beats", I find myself taken in by the video of "Star Guitar" in a store, a train journey with the scenery changing to the sound of music. Perfect video and song.

But then I listen to it on CD, amused by the ping-pong ball introducing the song, tac-ta-tac, then replaced by the drums, a second of wonder, but the scenery is gone and the song doesn’t render the same as before. The other morning I only woke up when "It Began in Africa" started playing; in my sleep, I liked it, but listening to it now, it doesn’t convince me. Nothing on this album convinces me, it’s formally beautiful, impeccable, with deep bass entering on hi-hats that go quickly on their own, but there isn’t a single song that makes me want to dig into the pile of CDs and play it right away, feel the need for.

The only thing that sticks with me for a short while is "The Test" where Richard Ashcroft sings, in a song that perhaps should have represented the evolution that the Verve could have taken, reminding me of "It’s All in the Mind". The first or second single. But even this doesn’t compel me to go searching for the album in the pile, even though when it plays, it's "quite impressive".

Then Beth Orton sings in "The State We’re In", a hippie song, I expect to hear “hey now what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down”. 'Hippiedom' initiated with "Private Psychedelic Reel" (Dig Your Own Hole) where the hippie of Mercury Rev, Jonathan Donahue, sang. But more can be done with her voice. Sure, it has light parts that revolve, like the thing in "The State…".

Nothing remains with me from this album, though listening to it in the background at a bar would be pleasant. Respect, but nothing more than that.