This was supposed to be a comeback album by the famous EDM duo The Chemical Brothers that had taken a while to create. After the lukewarm quality album released in 2002 called Come With Us, could the dynamic duo still make great music? This album, although probably not The Chemical Brothers best by popular opinion, sold well and charted highly enough after mostly positive reviews. It also received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. This album featured some chart-invading hits such as the legendary Galvanize. Let’s take a listen to this album and hopefully, the duo that is Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons can bring good musical memories to the listener upon hearing this music.

Galvanize begins with some massive Electronic sounds, and Eastern-sounding strings and quickly launches into a great Poppy piece. This features Rapper Q-Tip and sounds really awesome musically. A fun, fresh and interesting listening experience, this tune is about proving one’s self-worth lyrically. Musically, it is matched by some fantastic and catchy textures throughout. A great, great tune. This is a really great listening experience and is one of the most life-affirming statements you can hear. All in all, a killer listening experience. There is a breakdown towards the middle of this track, with some different cut-up and sampled sounds with a robot voice mentioning the album title. This is one of the best and most definitive tunes of its time and it peaks up and breaks down nicely. A great and fantastically excellent listening experience. The second half is an extended Electronic piece with some interesting layers of sounds, loops and instrumentation that sounds really awesome and fantastic. A cool, quirky and clever listening experience, this keeps one’s interest and mind following it all through from start to finish. Towards the end, this returns to the chorus and sounds amazing throughout. A great piece of music from start to finish. This ends with some neat Electronic sounds before concluding with some washes of sound. Excellent.

The Boxer features Tim Burgess of The Charlatans. It begins with some fully sick cut-up musical loops, just like Loops Of Fury. Tim Burgess sings very well, and this tune eventually launches into a fantastic, beatastic and joyous listening experience throughout. A really great tune to listen to. This has quirky melodies, some interesting editing and a great set of beats. This is an underrated tune that sounds absolutely wonderful. If you like liquid melodies, cut-up EDM loops and a nod to the spirit of Acid House, then this is for you. A great, great listening experience. This music deserves more praise and listening than what it currently has. There is a breakdown with harmonies, just before this massive tune launches into more verses. A super cool listening experience, this four-minute-long piece of music is legendary. It ends with the sound of an explosion.

Believe begins with some whooshes and some basic beats. This continues on for some time, with some strange samples and rhythms entering. This has some interesting liquid sounds, random samples of instrumentation (including guitars) and pounding beats. Kele Okereke is the guest vocalist on this tune. This track is rather repetitive after a while, although the music is really quite good otherwise. The vocal sample is unlikely overly necessary on this track. This builds up in sounds, sonic textures and instrumentation nicely throughout. To be fair, this does not need to be the length that it is. In any case, this is okay but it does drag on somewhat musically. The music here is not the best that The Chemical Brothers have ever done. This is likely the last main album The Chemical Brothers made that is worth paying attention to. A good listen, but far too repetitive and annoying to be really considered that great. There is a breakdown in the second half which repeats itself far too often, before the beats return and this annoying tune continues on. A bit of a disappointment, skip this tune if you must. The absurd repetition and length of this track kill the vibe. The beats and some sonic textures lead into an extended outro with some electric guitar playing. This is flogging a dead horse here, not a great tune overall. It segues into the next track.

Hold Tight London begins with some tribal-styled percussion and 4/4 beats. Some spacey textures enter, and this tune continues along well. Again, this is dull and goes on for far too long as a track. Nothing special nor exciting in a musical sense. Anna-Lynne Williams sings here and she sounds very ethereal on this rather naff tune. This tune should have been remixed totally for the vocals to really shine through. Nonetheless, an okay effort but it is clear by this point that The Chemical Brothers’s day in the sun is gone by this point. There are fragments of sounds and samples that are highly psychedelic. Still, there is nothing overly special on this track, and indeed, the album as well. This just unnecessarily drags on. It’s not outright bad but it definitely lacks musical magic throughout. This sounds just like a march to mediocrity and is nothing really super special here. The mix is very futuristic and psychedelic, but still, this could be a lot shorter. It is music for one to fall asleep to, to be fair. In any case, you can probably skip this tune as well. Very little excitement and interest is in this tune. It wraps up gradually after six minutes with some looped tribal percussion and delayed samples. Boring.

Come Inside begins with some ordinary psychedelic sounds, a clanging bass guitar looped and other interesting sounds throughout. This is a tune, possibly about sexual activity that again, is lacking sonically. When the beats enter, this launches into a frenzy of better-sounding music, but only via the rhythm section. This is only okay and The Chemical Brothers were quite clearly past their heyday by this point of music releases. This is enough to make one wish to hit the stop button and go and do something else. The breakdown is okay, but what follows sounds absolutely awful. A real letdown musically, this is nothing anywhere near as good as previous works by The Chemical Brothers. The lack of creativity, quality and the repetitive nature of the music is very poor. In any case, this tune eventually wraps up with the main percussion-driven section and gradually finishes with a bunch of Techno/Acid House-styled sounds. It segues into the next song.

The Big Jump sounds really awful from the start. It is a representation of how poor and lacking the duo’s focus is on this album. It just sounds really unnecessarily lame, pathetic and uninspired musically. Hard to believe that The Chemical Brothers earlier material was so much better than this rubbish. By this point of the album, turn it off, save your ears and never listen to this ever again. This just sounds awful and lacking. This is an attempt at Acid House in 2005 that quite frankly, sucks. In any case, the straightforward and repetitive tune that this is sounds so lazy and uninspired that it is a sore reminder of the fact that these guys were well past their heyday musically. Just a poor piece of filler musically. The music throughout is a joke, and this no doubt turned more people away than it attracted. The whole song sounds very much the same throughout. In any case, this gradually ends with more repeated loops and samples before the percussion stops and this annoying tune finishes up just before five minutes in length.

Left Right is garbage, just in case you were wondering. It has chanting of the song title and has some rather ordinary music to accompany it. There is a Rap guest named Anwar Superstar on this tune, but his appearance only makes things worse. There is some wannabe Jimi Hendrix guitar sampled here. From Exit Planet Dust to this garbage? The Chemical Brothers have lost it by this point. The rapping is okay, but the fact is that this track was ruined from the start. Referencing some political dictators just for the stupidity of it, this is not a really good tune at all. One will roll their eyes at this junk. This is very terrible, and there is no way any logical musical listener really can appreciate this tune. This pathetically political wannabe tune is just ordinary. Eminem also should sue The Chemical Brothers for ripping off elements of his own Soldier song. Beyond bad. It fades out at the end.

Close Your Eyes sounds better from the start, but is not that amazing with its offbeat drum sounds and other musical mentality here. This has The Magic Numbers as a guest, which is different. A longer tune that does not have a musically consistent basis to go by. The music throughout is very pretty, but this isn’t a fantastic-sounding piece by The Chemical Brothers. It sounds uninspired, awful and lazy. Sadly, The Chems did not keep their magic from the 1990s going into the new millennium. This is okay to listen to but isn’t a really fantastic listening experience to enjoy. The xylophones also are out of place, along with the weird drumbeats. This album is definitely a failure, and aside from the early material, is a throwaway listening experience. Even long-term fans of The Chemical Brothers will likely hate this music. Also, this goes on for way too long at over six minutes in length. A drag of an album and song to go through. The chanted vocals do not do justice, either and are just annoying throughout. In any case, skip this tune or chuck your copy of this album into the bin immediately. There is nothing special nor worth listening to here. Which is sad. The music drags on well past its welcome, and it should not be six minutes long. This ends with xylophone and acoustic guitar playing, along with some weird sonic samples. Very odd.

Shake Break Bounce is a weird and pathetic tune from the start. More sampled acoustic guitar is here, along with some of the weirdest sounds from The Chemical Brothers yet on this album. All the same, this is more of the same and shows The Chemical Brothers digging their own musical grave. A poor and disappointing mixture of sound, there is nothing worthwhile listening to here. Its shorter length of time proves that, indeed, this is a trite piece of music. The midsection is different, with some good drum breaks, but the overall tune is awful anyway. Saying that it is good is like trying to find a grain of wheat in a load of chaff. Anyway again, you should probably skip this tune and hit stop. The editing towards the end is okay, but aside from that, this is clearly a musical failure. It ends after over three and a half minutes with some reversed Eastern sounds, segueing into the next track.

Marvo Ging continues the reversed guitar melodies, and it sounds really weird. This is like The Chemical Brothers trying to do Country Music. Some may like this, but then again, remember that this album is a stinker. The music and beats go on alongside the weird guitar-reversed sounds. Again, this is not very worthwhile listening to or enjoying. It just sounds seriously annoying, and the other overdubs do not do it justice. This is okay, but only okay. The second section of this tune is initiated by a bell chime, and it sounds odd but annoyingly catchy. In any case, you get the idea, that this is sub-par for The Chemical Brothers in the 21st century. The music throughout is very annoying. In any case, this album deserves a reward for being one of the most overrated listening experiences you will have in your life. The length of this track is also way too long for something so mediocre. It really needn’t be over five minutes long. Towards the end, this annoying-as-anything tune begins to wrap up and conclude with extra string melodies and the removal of percussion. It gradually ends after nearly five and a half minutes. Thank goodness. It segues into the next track.

Surface To Air is the last piece on this album that isn’t worth your time or the price tag. It is also very lengthy at over seven minutes long. It begins with some atmospheric sounds, sounding quite like a movie film piece. This is a little better, but still is nothing special. The sounds present are fairly predictable. Robotic voices come through to make things a bit more interesting. This is less a piece of music and more a piece of experimental Avant-Garde sound. This goes on for some time listening to it before some fairly ordinary melodies enter. This piece may be a slight improvement on some of the tracks before it. Still, this isn’t A Grade glory from The Chemical Brothers. It takes a while to get started. This is a bit better as a tune, and the sounds and focus easily reflect this fact. Towards the midsection, it gradually builds up very nicely to a peak musically which sounds really cool. If only the rest of this album were the same, then it would be a better listening experience worthy of praise. Still, this is okay but lacks a bit of the classic magic of The Chemical Brothers. Regardless, this tune you can easily sit through. In any case, this piece of music breaks down in the second half with some good but basic Roland TB-303 melodies. It quickly progresses nicely along with the melodies. Still, this is not the best album or track by The Chemical Brothers. Towards the end, this gradually begins to conclude with some interesting progressions melodically and it sounds okay. There are layers of sound throughout this tune, and it finishes up well. It ends with a cymbal sound.

This is a very, very patchy musical listening experience. To be completely frank, you could likely avoid the whole album, apart from the original cut of Galvanize on this LP. Otherwise, the fact that this obviously hasn’t aged well and the musical inconsistency leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Should you listen to this album? Nah, try your luck with earlier releases by The Chemical Brothers. Don’t bother with this release.

Dated and boring.

4/10