at a glance...

Hometown: Manchester, England
Formed: 1992

Personnel:
The Brothers:
Tom Rowlands -decks, effects
Ed Simons -decks, effects
The Guests:
Bernard Sumner, Noel Gallagher, Jonathan Donahue, Hope Sandoval and Bobby Gillespie

Bands in the family :
Oasis, Justin Warfield, Mercury Rev, The Charlatans, Primal Scream, Spiritualized, Beth Orton, Mazzy Star

Notes:
Tom and Ed, then trading as the Dust Brothers as a tribute to the heroic production minds behind Paul's Boutique, made their name first as party DJs extraordinaire at Manchester's Naked Under Leather and Heavenly Records' nascent Sunday Social in London. As they ran out of records bangin' enough for their parties, they turned their hands to remixology, including stellar turns on Bomb the Bass' "Bug Powder Dust" and Deep Throat's "Mouth Organ." Debut single "Song to the Siren" impressed Andy Weatherall enough to start dropping it at his Sabresonic nights, and big beat manifesto "Chemical Beats" paved the way for the first Chemical Brothers album, Exit Planet Dust. Soon a whole new club culture emerged in the wake of the Brothers and their Social sets, and dozens of indie and techno acts dumped their old tools for breakbeats and 303s. Second LP Dig Your Own Hole saw Tom and Ed perfecting their head-mashing template while at the same time hinting at a more experimental muse.

Links:
Chemical Brothers Mothership
Chemical Brothers at Red Rocks
We Love The Chemical Brothers

The Chemical Brothers' last album featured a song called "Setting Sun." Surrender has a song that sounds like a setting sun. "Asleep From Day", their collaboration with Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval, is the perfect soundtrack to dusk - stately, warm, kinda glowing somewhere in the distance. It's terrific. Pour yourself a drink and let the evening take over.

But don't be surprised when "Got Glint?", a quirky piece of Kraftwerkian tech-house, pops its head up next. It's an incongruous transition, but The Chemical Brothers are clearly unencumbered by our expectations. Consider this: Their first two LPs won them unprecedented acceptance by the rock consensus, based largely on their use of rockist breakbeats on tracks like "Leave Home" and "Block Rockin' Beats."

Yet here tracks like "Hey Boy Hey Girl" and "Surrender" abandon the big beat agenda entirely, and almost all of this album's dancefloor-shakers are built on the four-on-the-floor rhythms of acid house and trance. Discophobes beware: you will convert or be left behind.

Not that the Chemicals are suddenly slaves to a techno agenda. Their collaborative efforts on Surrender are more collaborative than ever, and the input of indie rock's finest continues to work well in the Chemical sound world. Bernard Sumner's "Out of Control" takes his trademark New Orderisms into the badlands of dark acid and comes out laughing, while Jonathan Donahue's "Dream On" is basically a Mercury Rev b-side produced by the Chemical Brothers. That's a good thing, by the way.

In the end, it matters little whether Tom and Ed have their raver baggies or their indie tees on -- they're simply two of the best songwriters in pop. At the risk of sounding silly, you could make an argument that Tom and Ed are becoming the Lennon and McCartney of electronic music. Certainly their impact pales next to that of The Beatles, but as the band that brought rave to the pop consciousness, they bear the weight of "significance" with every release. Their experimental instinct continues to keep the imitators guessing, but they haven't turned their backs on pop. Instead they make pop work for them - painting every corner of Surrender with more melodies and dynamic shifts than most guitar bands manage in an entire career. Surrender proves it - we need The Chemical Brothers. Good to have them back.