ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: JUNE 14TH 2010


Further continues a well-worn process of emerge and retreat that the Chemical Brothers have been practicising for almost two decades now. On this, their seventh studio album proper and first for Parlophone records, they stripped away the mess that made We Are The Night and most of Push The Button such deadweights. Free from any guest vocalists and experimental collaborators set on veering the pioneers of Big Beats off track, Further is almost pared down and as lucid an album as you could expect from these guys. It has structure, and a lot of muscle, but this is not a clashing listening experience. It flows like none of their other albums and creates a lot of empty space around which beats can float, swoop and fall over one another. If Surrender and Dig Your Own Hole moved in particular linear, forward motions, packing everything they could into each and every second of sound, Further moves in circles, progressing ever outwards. Elektrobank this is not.


Further wasn’t eligible to enter the UK album chart upon its release due to a promotion with iPads through their label and this somehow feels like the album fell on deaf ears. Whilst it’s true that the Chemical Brothers are no longer significant in the way they once were (the concept of electronica taking over the mainstream having completed collapsed in on itself around the millennium), and two dud albums mid-00s certainly didn’t help, Further is astounding for bringing them back on track.  It’s definitely an album to return to again and most certainly a summer record in the way Cut Copy have defined my own personal summer playlists time and time again with In Ghost Colours. A song like Dissolved bestows that heady vibe that feels like riding clouds, expansive and fulfilling in a way a lot of In Ghost Colours’ shorter tracks were (think Midnight Runner and Voices In Quartz). From the opening track Snow, it’s clear that Rowlands and Simons are moving in a different direction, removing any drum beats and replacing them with gently building guitar feedback. It moves into Escape Velocity which finally explodes through a blistering 12-minute piece that repeatedly rises only to drop and begin a steady incline again. It’s the most extravagant stage of a relatively subdued record designed for sequential playback. Despite an obvious incapability of doing anything low-key, songs like Another World and the nosedive of highlight Swoon bestow a relative calm and mesmerising quality to them. Every piece of the puzzle feels tight and controlled, an element that was lacking in their previous two albums.


This restraint doesn’t always work. K+D+B is memorable only for its melodic refrain and the instrumentation begins to feel a little too well-worn towards the end. At eight tracks Further can seem a little half-baked, and it’s a mystery why the two bonus tracks Don’t Think and Porquoi weren’t included as standard. The former’s inclusion in an aptly placed nightclub scene from Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan proves that the Chemical Brothers no longer occupy that same space of their glory days. Nothing on this record could or should warrant club playback. Further is more evolved and intrinsically linked to a rich back catalogue of work that doesn’t rely on instantaneous results. It’s rare for a record by a band such as this to unfold over time but unfold is what Further does. It’s their second coming and it will be interesting to see how they evolve their sound in years to come.