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Rating: A career like that of the Chemical Brothers speaks for itself.
Heralds of a "trend" that disappeared into a black hole in just a few years, the Big Beat so praised in the post-Madchester nineties, they managed to stay afloat even in our twenty-first century thanks to a faithful following of fans, but especially due to irresistibly danceable and decidedly devastating live sets.
"Push The Button," released in 2005, left behind the usual trail of commercial success, but also just as many perplexities regarding a musical offering that seems, at best, decently constructed but static and rather cold. It’s futile to search for new gems like "Surrender" or "Dig Your Own Hole"; it would be unfair, after all, we are talking about a duo with a career spanning over a decade. And, to confirm, the "chemical brothers," twelve years after "Exit Planet Dust," release this "We Are The Night" (a truly tacky title, it must be said), which neither detracts nor adds to the post-Surrender production of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons.
The single that took on the responsibility of presenting the work is the overexposed "Do It Again", one of the six features on the record (with Ali Love, who will release his debut album in November); the rhythm is simple and repetitive, as often happens in the production of the British duo, and the track turns out to be a good dancefloor tune, descending more and more into the "street" as you listen to it (the album version is recommended, certainly not the shortened one aired on the radio). The second hit extracted from the new full-length is the fun "The Salmon Dance" (another collaboration, this time with Fatlip, a hip-hop artist from Los Angeles); if the "Finding Nemo" style video clip is quite cute, the song is a kind of simple nursery rhyme, pleasant and nothing more. The most anticipated feature was certainly with the nu-ravers Klaxons, that is, "All Rights Reversed", which turns out to be a decent track played on the interplay between the choruses and the sung parts, all laid on the usual rhythmic and danceable carpet.
The title track, placed immediately after the funereal intro "No Path To Follow", brings to mind "Believe" from "Push The Button," stuffing it with "video game" effects and adding a sample from the old "The Sunshine Underground". The pounding "Saturate" is also good, placed halfway between a frantic and blatantly "rock" drum (allow me the cliché) and a storm of hypnotic electronic beats. Bad is "Das Spiegel", cold and monotonous, as if rolled up on itself. There is no shortage of a nice couple of complex electronic smoothies ("A Modern Midnight Conversation" and, especially, "Burst Generator") and the hypnotic and minimal electro-pop of "Battle Scars" (featuring the very young—twenty-two years old—American singer-songwriter Willy Mason). The closure, after a perfectly useless "Harpoons", is entrusted to a little gem such as "The Pills Won't Help You Now" which, starting from mournful and subdued atmospheres, accelerates towards an ending with orchestral and electronic sounds (in "cohabitation" with the Midlake, a progressive band from Texas).
Asking for revolutions from the Bros. of the 2000s is frankly quite difficult; however, there are noticeable improvements compared to the weak predecessor, mostly in terms of sound production (much less "monochromatic") rather than the quality of individual tracks (apart from occasional exceptions), which remains somewhat stuck at a stretched sufficiency.
It is up to the listener to judge whether the "chemical duo" should continue on this path, or draw the curtain after this (dignified and nothing more) new album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Do It Again (05:32)
Let's turn this thing electric (x8)
Do it again! (x4)
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Turn of my ro-botic brain.
All my thoughts are all the same. (all insane)
Do it again! (x8)
Paint my face and bang my drum.
Throw my bone up to the sun.
Bang my drum and paint my face.
Pump my cave to hyperspace.
Do it again! (x8)
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Oh my god what have I done? Do it again!
All I wanted was a little fun. Do it again!
Got a brain like bubble gum. Do it again!
Blowing up my cranium. Do it again!
Turn of my ro-botic brain.
All my thoughts are all the same. (all insane)
06 Das Spiegel (05:51)
There's no path to follow
There's no path to follow
There's a line in the sand
Put there by a man
By a man whose children who built the castles made of stone
There's a man in the sky
Giving reasons why
That line grows deeper like these shackles round our bones
Move on to my own
Here come battle scars
It's the final charge
Here come battle scars
There's a child born
To a land of scorn
Sneaks past the borders and the lords that hold his hand
He was led like a lamb
All part of the plan
This castle crumbles as he walks out of this land
Move on to my own
Here come battle scars
It's the final charge
Here come battle scars
This is what we own
Here come battle scars
This is where we are
Here come battle scars
There's no path to follow
There's no path to follow
There's no path to follow
Living for the reasons
of the dead that moved to
paper from their heads
into my fingers
and my deadly view is
strangled by the rent
I have no purpose in this land
have I forgotten how to stand up
with the humor and the need
I've got to find a way to be
I just turn up the stereo
I can't survive without the cold
This culture's fallen off its feet
I've got to find a brand new beat
beat (beat) beat
beat (beat) beat
beat (beat) beat
There's a road ahead
'tween the live and dead
Church bells are ringing like the panic in my head
Step, step, one by one
Walk into the setting sun
Water's rising, rising fast
History catching up at last
Danger ahead, death behind
No one to follow but old man time
Time, time, take us back before the line was drawn
Before the sky turned black
07 The Salmon Dance (03:40)
SALMON DANCE - CHEMICAL BROTHERS FEAT. FATLIP
Hello Boys and girls, my name is FatLip
And this is my friend Sammy the Salmon
*What it do? *
Today, we're going to teach you some fun facts about Salmon
And a brand new dance
Let me introduce to you a brand new dance
I know you're gonna love it if you give it one chance
It's not complicated, it's not too hard
You don't even have to be a hip hop star
See anyone can do it, all you need is style
Listen up peep gang I'm gonna show you how
Put your hands to the side, as silly as it seems
And shake your body like a salmon floatin' up stream!
I'll float up stream
(You know how we do it, you know how we do it)
Again
*All my peeps spend part of their life in fresh water*
*And part of their life in salt water*
Wow, very interesting
*We change round a couple of days after spawning*
*Then we die*
When I first did the Salmon all the people just laughed
They looked around and stood like I was on crack
I heard somebody say out loud what the fuck is that
This nigga's dancin like a fish while he's doin' the snap
But the more I kept doing it the more they kept feelin' it
And then I heard some bitches say yo that niggas killin' it
By the end of the night everyone was on my team
And the whole club was dancing like a salmon floatin' up stream!
I'll float up stream
(You know how we do it, you know how we do it)
Again
*Most of our friends find their home waters by sense of smell*
*Which is even more keen than that of a dog or a bear*
Wow
*My family also rely on ocean currents, tides*
*The gravitational pull of the moon*(I'm floatin' upstream again)
The moon? Fish pay attention to the moon? Wow. Who knew?
*Did you know? *
What?
*That I could go to Japan, and back. *
You're kidding me. Amazing. Jeez
*Polluted water can kill both baby salmon, that are developing*
*And the adult salmon, that are on their way to spawn. *
Wow what a shame, what a shame
Huh?
Woah
Wow. Hey s-kids, hey give it up for s-Sammy the Salmon and his amazing salmon dance
Huh? Whadda ya say?
Who's hungry?
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Other reviews
By Suonoonous
The misstep made with the boring, verbose, unnecessarily repetitive, and ultimately useless 'Push The Button' remains just a bad memory in front of this new work.
'Pills won’t help you Now' with Midlake is one of the most beautiful songs written and played by the duo since their debut.
By beso
"I don’t like this album. So, you’ll ask why my rating. Because it’s a great album. It’s a courageous work, full of new ideas, study, thoughts, and reasoning."
"A Chemical album should make me dance. This one instead makes me think about many other things."
By Darkboy
"We Are The Night is the worst album by the Chemicals."
"The explosive power of the Chemicals... is consistently missing."
