new chemical brothers album and tour

[holden]

So i just listened to the new album and, well, just as many said above, it's not pretty to my ears.
There are a few tracks with some promise (great builds and sounds on "Burst generator"; "Saturate" a.k.a. electronic battle weapon 8 or 9 is pretty fresh), but too too many retreads of their back catalog. For example, the track "We are the Night" sounds very similar to the end part of "Sunshine Underground" and even includes sounds i know i've heard from Surrender's B-sides. "Do it again" is like a watered down "get Yourself High". the closing track, "Battle Scars", with it's vaguely Johnny Cash vocal and theme, is an uninteresting revisit to "The Golden Path". And then, there's "The Salmon Dance"... the vocal sounds like when they showed breakdancers and rappers on Sesame Street in 1983. Unfunny and embarrassing. i kept thinking of when Moby interviewed Mr. Fish on his 18 B-Sides DVD. This, too, should have been an outtake. The album opens and closes wih no fanfare, unlike all their previous albums that came out swinging and ended with a jubilant end-of-nighter anthem. Maybe a third of this record is catchy, but nothing groundbreaking or exciting, and- too many fast-forward-inducing moments.
i wished it wasn't the case, but yeah, downward spiral from "Come With Us".