Chemical Brothers
Push The Button
Astralwerks
By Bill Werde
Big beat’s chosen duo comes through with a stellar studio album. "Push The Button" hearkens back to the arena rocking genius of their thumping late 90’s heyday. Sprinkled with vocals from Q-Tip (“Galvanize”, their first single, brings Q-Tip back to his top form – fast rap is back!), Kele Okereke of Bloc Party and Anna-Lynne Williams from Trespassers, the result is a beat heavy masterpiece with tinges of psychedelic headiness highly recommended by ass shakers and critics alike.
It's been a tough season for the former great hopes of electronic music -- the recent Fatboy Slim and the Prodigy releases ranged between middling and drecky -- but there's hope for stadium-ready dance music in the Chemical Brothers' fifth studio album.
Push The Button keeps to a formula familiar to followers of the U.K. duo, opening with a block-rockin' break-beat track ("Galvanize"), closing with an extended jam (the acid-trip carousel soundtrack of "Surface to Air") and, in between, delivering an album full of beat-wise psychedelia.
Highlights feature two vocal newcomers: the gentle lilt of Anna-Lynne Williams from Trespassers, who lends an affirming beauty to "Hold Tight London," and the urgent yelp of Kele Okereke from Bloc Party, which makes "Believe" a club-anthem-in-waiting. "I need you to believe!" wails Okereke and by the end of Push the Button, we do.
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