Chemical Engineering: 09/27/2007

The Chemical Brothers still get us dancing and still reign supreme

By Dennis Romero

In the early 1990s, after a night of clubbing, invariably my friends and I would end up at my apartment and start joking that someday we'd find ourselves old and gray, sitting tableside at a Vegas revue. An aging Moby would be in a tux, looking a little like The Sopranos' Dominic Chianese, belting out his techno classic "Go."

Well, Moby's no Uncle Junior, but my gray hair is starting to sprout, and Underworld recently performed at the Hollywood Bowl for a wine-sipping crowd of aging hipsters. We're not in Vegas-revue territory just yet, but electronic dance music has held sway in the United States long enough for the likes of Underworld, Daft Punk, and the Chemical Brothers to experience a second wind with a new generation of clubgoers. Today's dance music renaissance is good for those Clinton-era super-groups. The technology of making beats is better than ever, and so is some of the music.

Of those three titans of '90s rave culture, the Chemical Brothers are still making the highest-quality music. While popular, Daft Punk is mostly relying on old standards during its sold-out performances. (The duo's last original artist album came out in 2005.) And Underworld's recent long-player, Oblivion with Bells, is utterly pleasing, dreamy and inoffensive, yet without a tinge of edginess. The duo's Karl Hyde, is 50 - 50 years old. (And he likes to kick, stretch, and kick!) Even L.A.-based Crystal Method is riding e-music's second wave this month with an enhanced and expanded, 10-year-anniverary edition of its own classic album, Vegas.

The Chemical Brothers, on the other hand, continue to do the hard work of moving things forward - of innovating new sounds, structures, and themes. On its summer release, We Are the Night, the British duo is as ambitious, adventurous, and advance-minded as ever. If anything, the only reason the album doesn't garner the pair as much praise as its debut, Exit Planet Dust, is that the rest of the pop world has closed the gap, and the Chems' brand of bombastic break-beats and rock-infused rocket rides aren't as far out as they were 12 years ago.

"Exit was completely out of whack with anything made at the time, and it definitely was a great record," says one half of the Chems, 37-year-old Ed Simons. "But I'm pretty happy with the music we just made, really. If we don't feel that way, it's time to call it a day."

Indeed, the Chems' sounds aren't as shocking today as the duo's mid-'90s assault from the land of dance-till-dawn psychedelia, but Simons and partner Tom Rowlands have made an electronic music album that sounds as fitting, contemporary, and urgent as any grand, rock opus did in the 1970s. In that sense, the Chemical Brothers have seen e-music from its days as a fringe fad to a fully matured, pop-art endeavor worthy of Rolling Stone coverage and Coachella appearances. The world has caught up with the Chems. Theirs is the sound of today. We Are the Night brims with stabs at pop greatness, from the cinematic "Battle Scars" (sung by Willy Mason), to the Klaxons-flavored "All Rights Reserved," to the Daft Punk-slaying "Do It Again," to the catchy, Fatlip-rapped "Salmon Dance."

"An album that has 'Battle Scars' and a dance track living together, side-by-side, is nice," Simons says. "I think the freshness of our records has been greatly aided by being able to work with different people. What they come back with enables us to evolve and keep getting different styles every time."

Dance music is back, my old friends, so light up that cigar and dust off those glow-sticks. But for the Chemical Brothers, don't call it a comeback.

"There was never any death of dance music," Simons says. "There's a basic urge of young people to dance, and that's never going to be wiped out. Tom and I aren't on a real quest to uphold the flag of dance music, though. We just feel free."