The Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust

MINE

Ech, the debut album?  Not Surrender?  Sometimes the pointy stick is so cruel.  Exit Planet Dust is OK, but doesn't have the oh-so-fine tunes the Chems came out with later in their career.  I've seen them live a few times, at festivals and on their own, and I have to say Tom and Ed never fail to put on a great show.  With or without, er, enhancement.

It's weird to think that this album came out 15 years ago.  I spent a lot of time before and after then dancing my ass off in clubs to music of this ilk - and going to see artists like the Chems, Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold and others whip dancefloors into a frenzy.  It was a simpler time... when I often wouldn't really sleep from breakfast time on Friday to late Sunday afternoon.  I'm healthier now, because I don't smoke any more, but I'm reasonably certain I was fitter then, as I could dance for six to eight hours with only short breaks.

OK, this isn't reviewing the album.  Only for completists, not as good as Dig Your Own Hole or Surrender.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

YOURZ

Well this is interesting.  Here's me expecting Mine to wax about this album, being as it is a Big Beat classic and the album that introduced the world to The Chemical Brothers.  But she doesn't like it so much.  Man, there's just no predicting her (which is cool by me because I love surprises).  Of all the 'dance' genres, the one I can stand to listen to with any regularity is Big Beat, mainly because it has some great, erm, big beats.  And The Chemical Brothers are one of the best, without a doubt.

I've seen The Chems a number of times now, mostly at festivals.  But the one time I saw them at a headline show, I was straight and sober.  It didn't make any difference to the show.  It was spectacularly massive, with a huge surround sound setup (imagine their huge sounds booming around over head and you get a small idea of it) and a light show unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

Less reliant on vocals and more on beats, Exit Planet Dust established the duo as a force to be reckoned with both in their own country and around the world and included the Big Beat classics Chemical Beats and Song To The Siren (which sampled This Mortal Coil's song of the same name) as well as Alive Alone (featuring vocals by Beth Orton) and Life Is Sweet (featuring vocals by Tim Burgess from The Charlatans). 

This is the start of it all.  And the rest, as they (historians, I'm thinking) say, is history.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information: http://www.thechemicalbrothers.com/

In our collection we also have Surrender and Come With Us