CD Review

Whereas other breakbeat, techno and electronica brethren have long since settled for complacent, uninspired rehashings of their own work and that of others, now that the more than a decade-old genre boom went stateside, the Chemical Brothers have strived to remain (and often succeeded in remaining) fresh and innovative. On their latest release, the underwhelming Push the Button, they return to a technique last explored, to far greater success, on 1997’s Dig Your Own Hole: integrating vocalists for many of their choicest samples, and letting vocal percussion, singing and rhyming dictate the build of a groove.

It’s fun, but only to a point, and here many of the selections are too vocals-heavy, with the brothers’ gallery of well-honed electronica tricks relegated to mere background coloring. The rappers, especially Q-Tip on “Galvanize” and Anwar on “Left Right,” mix themselves in with the least amount of distraction, but it isn’t until the back half of the album that the listener starts to feel that it’s more than just friends hanging out over drinks, setting the studio controls to “Record” and fucking around. Two tracks – the punchy “The Big Jump” and trance-inducing “Come Inside” – have enough verve to remind the listener that Rowlands and Simons do far better work than this.