Album Review: Chemical Brothers - Born in Echoes

4/5

For anyone ancient enough to remember the heyday of the mid-90s big beat scene, the Chemical Brothers’ eighth studio album will feel like the dance-floor equivalent of a pair of comfortable slippers.

Twenty years from their debut, Exit Planet Dust, Ed Simons and Tom Rowland have stayed loyal to their original formula, splicing vintage hip-hop and propulsive electronica, with fish-out-of-water contributions from rapper Q-Tip and indie singers Annie Clark (of St Vincent) and Cate LeBon (who gave the new project its title in suggesting the best music is “born in the echoes” that result when musician muck about in the studio).

Amid the thunking grooves and hazy melodies, the record has the aspect of a meticulously prepared time capsule. Relentlessly old-school, nobody would have raised an eye-brow had it come out in, say, 1997 — the heyday of indie-dance crossover and the first wave of ‘superstar DJs’.

The onslaught of lurching beats that constitutes the Chems’ trademark is present from the outset and while there are nominally experimental flourishes, such as the droning guitar sample on ‘I’ll See You There’, these outside-the-box moments merely recalls similarly unconventional highpoint from previous Chemical collections (most especially, ‘Private Psychedelic Reel’, the juddering closer to their second LP, Dig Your Own Hole).

In recent interviews Simons and Rowland have expressed doubt as to the long-term future of their collaboration (understandably after two and a half decades together a little of the thrill has gone).Perhaps that is why Born In The Echoes feels so trenchant in its adherence to the past and notably declines to acknowledge the influence of the yammering, squelchy EDM scene on club culture.

After listening all the way through, your first compulsion may be to dig into the archive and revisit the pair’s earlier glories.

There are reasons for suspecting Simons and Rowland might not take that as an insult.