Push The Button [Vinyl]

The Chemical Brothers' fifth album--a stunning return to bold, brilliant, mid-1990s form--delivers fierce beats, propulsive rhythms, and hallucinatory samples that are, if anything, even better than some of the duo's earliest work, moving in exciting and different directions. The requisite "big beat" dance-floor material is exemplified by "The Big Jump" and the ever-evolving "Believe" (with vocals by Bloc Party's Kele Okereke), but the real surprise here is the wealth of gentler tracks. "Hold Tight London" features a lovely vocal by Anna-Lynne Williams and a glistening sonic edge that's both glacial and warm, and the lengthy, gorgeous instrumental "Surface to Air" glides along on haunting, beat-driven lines. Then there's the flipside of that, as on "Galvanize," a deep-funk-fried slice of Arabian techno-rap featuring Q-Tip, and "Left Right," a blistering anti-war track with rhymes by Anwar Superstar. Unlike much of the Brothers' earlier output, PUSH THE BUTTON covers a lot of ground, uncovering other sonic worlds just beneath the well-tread electronica surface.