If it wasn't for the revolutionary artwork, it would be easy to suspect that the Chemical Brothers were parodying their roles as electronic musicians with that album title. After all, people have accused the genre of sounding redundant for years. But while contemporaries like Prodigy and Fatboy Slim fall by the wayside, on their fifth studio album Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons sound positively reinvigorated, as the dreamy textures of 2002's Come With Us give way to a set of sharper, more focused songs, from the politically charged "Left Right" to the wide-screen "Close Your Eyes." It's epic stuff, particularly when A Tribe Called Quest rapper Q-Tip magically appears to give lead-off track "Galvanize" an vintage hip-hop kick. But because this is as much about the future as the past, the British duo also recruits Kele Okereke of underground punk-funk stars Bloc Party and the London vocal group The Magic Numbers to help push things forward. --Aidin Vaziri
The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo, comprised of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. Initially they called themselves "The Dust Brothers", after the noted US production duo of the same name, but their burgeoning
popularity and the threat of legal action from the originals led them to change their name in 1995. Along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and a few other lesser-known acts they were pioneers of the big beat electronic dance genre and are known for high-quality live sets. In 2004, Chemical Brothers began work on "Push the Button", their fifth studio album. "Galvanize", the first single to be taken from the album and including Q-Tip on the vocals, premiered exclusively on iTunes. The release of "Galvanize" is set for January 17, 2005, with "Push The Button" set to follow the week after.
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