It was only when "Hey Boy Hey Girl" hit the charts and I bought "Surrender" that I began to see the light. Yet, for some reason, I still didn't investigate their previous albums "Exit Planet Dust" or "Dig Your Own Hole". It was as if "Surrender" was year zero and my interest in The Chemical Brothers could extend no further back.
I eventually bought this album on CD sometime in the early twenty first century and this vinyl edition was a leaving present from my colleagues when I changed employers back in 2019. As you might expect, this is a double vinyl package, but thankfully it isn't in a gatefold sleeve. Discogs tells me it was pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands and that means the quality of the packaging and discs is very good. The audio crystal clear but the depth of the bass is a little disappointing in places. There's no download card but as I already own the CD that isn't a concern. Unbeknownst to me there was a download card hidden in the package that I found when playing the album for this post. The download worked first time and is for WAV files of the album.
It goes without saying that the quality of music here is superb. "Leave Home" and "In Dust We Trust" should sound familiar to anyone who had anything more than a passing interest in music in the nineties. "Three Little Birdies Down Beats" is one of my all time favourite dance tracks and satisfies any four-on-the-floor cravings that may still remain from my clubbing days.
The experience of listening to this album on vinyl is quite different for anyone accustomed to hearing it on CD. Not necessarily because of the dynamics but due to the breaks in the programme that occur when you need to turn the disc. The end of "In Dust We Trust" cuts off a little abruptly rather than the seamless segue into "Song to the Siren" CD listeners might be accustomed to. Elsewhere the breaks are more natural and cause less interruption, but it still feels like the flow of the album afforded by digital files or CD is lacking.
The quality of the remaining tracks is consistently high and only "Chico's Groove", "Alive Alone" and "Playground of a Wedgeless Firm" felt a little disappointing. Having said that, I'd much rather listen to this album than the majority of those I've reviewed to up to this point. Almost every track here could have been a single and it deserves to be regarded as a classic of the nineties. 4/5
