First: the beginning of this song doesn't make sense because it's the end of another song. Second: this song is about 12 minutes long, but it's not overlong. How is that possible, that an 12 minute electronic dance song doesn't overstay it's welcome? Well, hopefully if my highness doesn't interfere too much with my memory of everything I thought about over the last 15 minutes while driving home after eating some tasty tacos, we'll explore that in the following paragraphs.

"Escape Velocity" is a nearly perfect example of how you pull off a song that is in excess of, say, 5 minutes. The fact that this song is 12 minutes long and actually remains entertaining and doesn't feel repetitive despite using the same beat and only a single lead instrument for the majority of the thing is something that I realize takes a massive amount of skill.

Or, at least in the wake of my suckiness I feel like I understand better how a song like "Escape Velocity" could go terribly wrong. There isn't anything in this track I someone armed with a copy of Ableton Live couldn't possibly pull off---the instruments and sounds used might as well come as presets as far as I can tell---but not just any regular joe could finesse so much out of it all.

The initial lead that changes every bar or two is a good example of what this song does right, by changing up the main riff and keeping the movement of the piece on its toes---and oddly enough elsewhere on this album The Chemical Brothers seem to forget this and just play the same riff repeatedly, exactly the same, for the entire song, which will quickly even turn a good riff into something kind of annoying. A shifting but similar riff throughout the song is great: when a riff is static throughout a whole song, it feels a little like you've been dancing the same way the whole time; the feel stays pretty static despite shifting instruments and the like. With a constantly shifting lead you keep the piece moving around---it keeps you, the listener, on your toes.

The Chemical Brothers also play with builds (or crescendos, whatever)---the song starts with one---quite a bit. There are so many that I don't really want to bother counting them. There's at least four, and then there are a couple fake out ones that seem to just build and vanish, or just turn into another instrument in the background playing yet another shifting riff. It's actually... well, now that I've sat here and listened to it and figured it out, it's pretty cool. The build is a utility: they use builds to introduce new instruments to the mix. They make your head expect something to happen, and then it does, except it's a little subtle so you almost don't even notice it but you can feel it.

Holy shit, this song is like 800x more awesome than I already thought it was.

You know, I don't even know if I can keep writing about this. This song is too awesome. There is no way I am ever going to understand how awesome it is. Is there a formula? Because if so, they fucking broke it after this song. Don't get me wrong, the rest of Further is pretty rad, and I'd be doing The Chemical Brothers a great disservice by writing a proper short review of the album here. So, here goes.

I haven't listened to anything by The Chemical Brothers since Surrender came out back when I was in high school. Ever since then I've never felt like TCB was relevant to my life: I started listening to neo-psychedelic and started listening to indie and it just seemed, to me, that shit like "Block Rockin' Beats" and (to switch bands) "Smack My Bitch Up" was no longer really relevant to me. For the most part I turned my back on most dance music from this period of time, because a lot of it sounds really similar. Be honest, who the fuck still listens to Orbital? No one. No one listens to Orbital. How about Sneaker Pimps? No? So, then, I can't be blamed.

But I guess the truth is, The Chemical Brothers themselves started to suck, or at least that's what everything else on the internet says, so maybe it's OK I skipped out on them. Besides, these days us kids, we have MGMT, we have Passion Pit, we have heard and fallen in love with dance music that doesn't deliver "Block Rockin' Beats" but does deliver music that we can feel while we dance to it. MGMT's dancey songs all contain chord progressions that are decidedly melancholy, and Passion Pit's general mood feels to me like "there's a raincloud over my head but I am going to sing in falsetto and dance my heart out". I can't recall a Chemical Brothers song that really made me feel something.

But I feel kind of like Further is The Chemical Brothers realizing that good music isn't about, ahem, beats, that perhaps rock blocks, and is more about creating something that makes you move your body not just to the music but to what the music makes you feel. Not all the songs are like this, there are formulaic Chemical Brothers songs (like the single "Swoon", which tries to dull you into submission with a squelching repetitive riff), but something like the combo of "K+D+B" and "Wonders of the Deep" that shifts the mood around between all sorts of different feelings I can't even describe almost make me... make me... make me do something hyperbolic and over the top.

This is a dope album. Listen to it. I say this as someone who didn't expect to say this about this album.