This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Back with another one of those block rockin’ beats? Well, not exactly.
Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are indeed back, but unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on your taste in electronica — the spacious, coolly introspective Surrender isn’t the big-beat dance-floor opus 1997’s Dig Your Own Hole was. Perhaps it’s because they exorcised their DJ demons on last year’s dance-mix disc Brothers Gonna Work It Out. Or maybe they’re trying to stay ahead of the techno curve. Whatever it is, on Surrender, Ed’s all right and Tom’s all right — they just seem a little weird. And they don’t give themselves away — at least, not to the same sort of over-the-top boogie fever that characterized Dig Your Own Hole. Here, the grooves are a little sparer, the beats are a little slower, the samples are fewer and farther between and the thumping bass drums have been mixed to the back of the tracks.
Don’t misunderstand: Tom and Ed haven’t turned the beat completely around — Surrender is still a techno album at heart, as the drum ’n’ bass of single Hey Boy Hey Girl attests. Most of the hour-long album’s songs even flow seamlessly together into a giant megamix. And like Hole, Surrender has a slate of guest spots from the cream of British music. Bernard Sumner of Joy Division / New Order croons the moody Out Of Control, Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher voices the grand, sweeping, Britpop (natch) of Let Forever Be, and Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval takes over for Beth Orton on the reverb-drenched, Cowboy Junkies-style chillout Asleep From Day.
And while there’s no obvious monster hit — no instantly addictive Block Rockin’ Beats, no Setting Sun — that’s not to say Surrender is without great songs. In fact, that’s the biggest difference here: Most of the tracks, even the instrumentals, feel like actual songs with verses, choruses, melodies and movements, instead of dance mixes based on Fat Boy Slim-style repetition and cartoon effects. This time out, the brothers take aim at your head and heart instead of just your body and booty.
In other words, these beats may not rock the block — but they may very well knock your block off.
