FEATURE:
Second Spin
The Chemical Brothers - We Are the Night
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FOLLOWING the terrific…
PHOTO CREDIT: Simon King/Redferns
Push the Button of 2005, The Chemical Brothers released We Are the Night in 2007. By this stage, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons’ albums were starting to divide critics. Look at their triumphant first three albums: 1995’s Exit Planet Dust, 1997’s Dig Your Own Hole and 1999’s Surrender. It is clear that The Chemical Brothers ruled the late-1990s! Their Big Beat and Electronica blends definitely ignited club-goers and impressed critics. Maybe something had been lost as they headed into a new century. I think that their sixth album, We Are the Night, has highlights and strengths. It got a few positive reviews in 2007, though many were quite mixed. The sense that The Chemical Brothers lacked the punch and inventiveness that made their 1990s work stand out. The duo has since released albums that have won critics and done really well (their most-recent album, 2019’s No Geography, got good reviews). I feel people should give this album more time and love. There are a few average tracks. Cuts like Do It Again and The Salmon Dance are amazing. I think people need to give the album a proper listen. I can appreciate why diehards fans of The Chemical Brothers felt We Are the Night was not up there with their best. Rather than it being about the noise and hitting the gut, The Chemical Brothers were focusing more on melody.
I want to highlight a couple of reviews to show what critics have said about this album. In their review, this is what AllMusic offered:
“The Chemical Brothers never stopped being great producers, but during some of their ho-hum full-lengths of the early 2000s, they relied too much on production skills and forgot what they were first known for: innovative sounds and great hooks. (It's hard to deny that their comparatively sleek psychedelic house was a far cry from the big-beat bombast and excitement of their first two LPs.) Unfortunately, We Are the Night is no departure, although it does reveal Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons showing some build-to-suit character instead of angling for the straitjacket-tight and over-serious dance music of their past ten years. The first half of the record, including the single "Do It Again" (unconsciously ironic title?), is no better nor worse than most of what the Chemical Brothers produced between 1998 and 2007, but beginning with a diverting little electro noodling called "Das Spiegel," it becomes clear that there's a little more going on here. Hip-hop's favorite toker, Fatlip, stops by to relate an odd tale about fish ("The Salmon Dance"), "A Modern Midnight Conversation" dabbles in Italo-disco (but gets most of its flavor from a sample), and the duo stretch out (slightly) for the creepy four-four crawl "Battle Scars" with neo-folkie Willy Mason. The Chemical Brothers have occasionally shrouded their more interesting productions until the second half of their LPs, but something else is obviously needed”.
In another review, the BBC seemed disappointed by a duo who, years previously, were masters of their craft and winning adoring reviews all over the place:
“Listening to the latest Chemical Brothers album is a dispiriting experience not a million miles from following the fortunes of England’s national football team.
Watching England play used to be exciting and rewarding. Punters could be assured of high standards and were almost always certain there were moments of brilliance on the way. Now everyone else has caught up but England haven’t improved.
The Chems have influenced massive swathes of modern music and particularly the UK’s dance scene, but now it’s difficult to be anything but apathetic.
Pop down the shop for a pie and you’ll practically get knocked over by a beat and bass disciple running back to their studio to work on a new loop. Simian, Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal and Groove Armada are all churning out high quality albums right across the genre and that’s before factoring in the likes of New Young Pony Club who straddle the indie/dance divide.
This being Tom and Ed Chemical (their real surnames are far too dull), WATN is not an unmitigated disaster.
The title track remarkably sounds like stars exploding and towards the end of the record are three ace tunes in a row. "Burst Generator", where synths explode into coruscating My Bloody Valentine waves of sound, is clearly this LP’s answer to "The Sunshine Underground" from the duo’s far superior Surrender album. But it remains to be seen if a band will name themselves after …"Generator".
Immediately after this "A Modern Midnight Conversation" is much better than its shocking sixth-form art project title suggests and is almost 2007’s "I Feel Love". Giorgio Moroder would surely love the bassline. Finally, "Battle Scars" is a pleasing set of aural contrasts with gentle piano samples working well with a spoken poem and crisp breakbeats.
This top trio aside, WATN is something of an embarrassment for a pair that were masters of their art. Klaxons collaboration "All Rights Reversed" takes the worst of both bands and shunts them together, "Do It Again" is a sexless and joyless Kelis parody, "The Salmon Dance" is only slightly less annoying than getting hit by one in the face and "Saturated" is the sort of timid trance-edged guff that gives deep house a bad name”.
I am going to wrap up soon. Whilst We Are the Night is not my favourite album from The Chemical Brothers, I do feel that it was unfairly judged when it came out. Too many critics comparing it with their classic work, rather than accepting the evolution and changes that needed to come in. If you have some time, sit down with We Are the Night and explore and album by The Chemical Brothers…
THAT remains underrated.