The Chemical Brothers: Further | CD review

The Chemical Brothers have slightly changed their way of working on their seventh album. Gone – apart from a snatch of Stephanie Dosen on the opening, hymnal Snow – are the celebrity guest vocalists, with Tom Rowlands occasionally singing instead. Conceived to accompany digital films, the eight tracks have been designed to ebb and flow like one of their pulverising live sets. Perhaps this explains why the results sound reassuringly familiar. The piledriving Horsepower and almost equally loudspeaker-troubling Escape Velocity hark back to their glorious early-90s Big Beat period, the latter via very early Kraftwerk. Swoon pays homage to My Bloody Valentine and Orbital's Halcyon, while K+D+B's drums-and-melody soundscape battles with the giant sonic shadow cast by the Brothers' own The Private Psychedelic Reel from 1997. There is some progression in the slightly bigger beats, higher-tech FX and a stadium rather than club feel. Further may lack a stone–cold standout, but fans of their classic work could do worse than reconnect with them here.