We Are The Night

is the new album by those clever folk at The Chemical Brothers.

It's been out for some time now, and I've listened to it to death. It's one of those few albums were I don't skip too many tracks (one to be precise, the awful "The Salmon Song").

We Are The Night is the 5th album by The Chems, sixth if you count Exit Planet Dust (They were called The Dust Brothers then). Proving to be much more of an integrated experience than their last 2 albums (Come With Us was awful, Push The Button had a few great tracks).

With this album, the Chems take you on a dance music journey, from their own nearly-patented big beat style (sometimes called chemical beat), to 80s electronica, then over to a bit of trance/techno, back to some indie, with a little bit of Daft Punk, Death in Vegas, and Lemonjelly all thrown in for good measure.

It all sounds too wrong to work, but it does. They somehow manage to make every song feel like a Chemical song, either by throwing in a huge sequence here or there, or adding some psychedelic beeps and noises, you never lose the feeling that this is The Chemical Brothers. At their best.

The famous last epic track that all their albums have had is still there. This time it's called "The Pills Won't Help You" and it features someone called midlake on vocals. Admittedly, it's a lot more mellowed than their previous epics, and to me is no where near the stellar hights of "Surface to Air", nor even "The Sunshine Underground" or "The Private Psychedelic Reel" from their previous albums.

But that doesn't stop this album from being my favourite Chems album. Nothing could surpass the excellent Surrender, but this has. It's more complete, more modern, and amazing to listen to. Whether it will age as well as it's big brother, only time will tell. But for now, it's great.

Finally, some tracks worth mentioning:

Saturate: I'm sure to make this they got some child with a keyboard to press some keys. Repeat over and over but keep on adding layers. Very catchy beat.

Do It Again: by now EVERYONE should have heard this, or seen it's video, particularly arabs as the video is arabic again (like push the button). Stupid song at first, that then becomes your favourite cos it's so damn genius. In fact, video embedded at the end :)

Das Spiegel: The funkiest, happiest, greatest track they have ever made. A bit of lemonjelly, a bit of chemical, and lots of funky beats and sequences make this the funnest thing you'll hear this year.

Burst Generator: Pure chemical techno.

A Modern Midnight Conversation: ah, cowbells, lovely lady vocals, big beats. I could imagine them remembering their favourite bits from Electronic 80s and coming up with this track.

As you see, I like it. And so should you if you're reading this blog :)