A duo who will be forever associated (if not stigmatized) in most people’s minds with the ’90s “electronica” boom, The Chemical Brothers have quietly gone about their business of making really solid albums, with no visible signs of exhaustion. Never the most marketable musicians on the planet—lacking, say, Fatboy Slim’s penchant for novelties and The Prodigy’s studied visual weirdness—the Chems’ predisposition has been toward long-term consistency rather than short-term thrill-seeking. My guess is they’ll be tweaking away on their 808 patterns right into old age.
We Are the Night doesn’t deviate from the formula that has served them well. Split down the middle between instrumentals and songs with vocals (provided mostly by alt-rockers like Klaxons and Midlake), the album serves up dreamy headphone soundscapes (“Burst Generator”), blustery dance-floor shakers (the title track) and yearning dream-disco (“A Modern Midnight Conversation,” with its hauntingly repetitive vocal phrase).
The CD’s not entirely dud-free—a cloyingly childish rap by Fatlip (formerly of Pharcyde) on “The Salmon Dance” is superfluous, and a few tracks could afford a time-slice—but if you thought you’d outgrown this stuff, listen up: You may be in for a surprise.