Review Summary: A culmination of all their best experiments, with some new ones to boot...
The scope of mainstream electronic music has changed dramatically since the Chemical Brothers released their last record, 'Further', in 2010.
Sure, they've been active, releasing contributions to soundtracks and a live album, but akin to the build-up to the last Daft Punk record, there was an underlying worry that they would struggle to hold relevance.
Atonal synth layers, chopped up live drums and unconventional vocal leads all adorn the 2015 version of the 'club banger', and all the signs were there that maybe they just wouldn't be as unique as in the height of their popularity...
Not to fear.
'Born In The Echoes' doesn't rely on nostalgia of their past form and simply rehashing old ideas, but it does a damn good job of reminding the listener that the Brothers are here to forge their own path.
Combining hypnotically pounding passages of standard bass-heavy techno with glimpses of euphoric instrumentation, and crisp splatters of... well,
noise, plainly, this record sounds fresh but undoubtedly Chemical.
Take 'EML Ritual' and 'Just Bang' as examples of that former characteristic. The keys follow devastatingly simple patterns that any bedroom DJ could knock up in a heartbeat, and covers them in squelches, echoes, thumps and harsh percussion to warp them into whole new beasts entirely, keeping the heads bopping nonetheless.
'I'll See You There' and 'Reflexion' are a couple of delightfully messy celebrations of the psychedelia that was performed to perfection on the 1999 album 'Surrender', but they both feel so much tighter in production despite the chaos of the instrumentation.
The real curveball here is 'Taste Of Honey', the slow-burner of the record despite it's comparatively short run-time. The lazy, bouncy bass dominates every other aspect of the track: every arpeggiated synth twinkle, the bumblebee sound effect, the cold drenched-in-reverb vocal, and
holy *** is that a keytar? all at the mercy of this pounding, booming pattern. It's like the broody, threatening cousin of Skrillex's much-maligned 'Doompy Poomp' off the 'Recess' record.
Over the course of this album, the Brothers have crafted a legitimately huge pop album and a massively thumping dance record in one go, and created a hugely satisfying listen in the process.
The noughties may not have been hugely kind to these guys on the whole, but 20 years on from their debut, the future is again massively bright.
