The Chemical Brothers: Push The Button : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's been a tough season for the former great hopes of electronic music -- the recent Fatboy Slim and the Prodigy releases ranged between middling and drecky -- but there's hope for stadium-ready dance music in the Chemical Brothers' fifth studio album.

Push the Button keeps to a formula familiar to followers of the U.K. duo, opening with a block-rockin' break-beat track ("Galvanize," a hip-hop romp with Q-Tip on the mike), closing with an extended jam (the acid-trip carousel soundtrack of "Surface to Air") and, in between, delivering an album full of beat-wise psychedelia.

Highlights feature two vocal newcomers: the gentle lilt of Anna-Lynne Williams from Trespassers William lends an affirming beauty to "Hold Tight London," and the urgent yelp of Kele Okereke from Bloc Party makes "Believe" a club-anthem-in-waiting. "I need you to believe!" wails Okereke. And by the end of Push the Button, we do.