Zack McGhee

Music

The Chemical Brothers - Push the Button

Grade: B+

Divorced from the pulsing, strobe-lit asylum of the dance floor, the funky techno beats spun by most DJs tend to take on an embarrassingly academic charge. It's as if, piped into your ear buds, without the aid of a subwoofer and a stiff cocktail, the whole recoils into something less than the sum of its parts.

With Push the Button, their fifth studio album in twice as many years, the English duo that defined big beat surmounts the chief problem posed by electronic music: The Chemical Brothers have taken something totally artificial and instilled in it a soul.

While the addictive single Galvanize (a fierce collaborative effort with hip-hop MC Q-tip) should certainly lure you past the starting gate, it's with the urgent pairing of Believe and Hold Tight London (after mediocre second track The Boxer) that the Brothers unleash their full creative power. It's a ferocious, borderline transcendent ride from there on in that feels as familiar as it is fresh; one that culminates with the soothing, melodic Close Your Eyes.

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