Surrender

Surrender kicks off with a nervous, vibrating whine that brings to mind the first three seconds of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady." But it's just a tease; on their third album, techno's Chemical Brothers have all but turned their back on the rock muscle that earned 1997's Dig Your Own Hole gold status in the U.S.

Oh, there are guest rock vocalists galore--New Order's Bernard Sumner, Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval, and Oasis's Noel Gallagher--but only the latter brings out the crunching big beats that the Chems all but invented. The rest of Surrender hews closer to the thinner, synthesized textures of the electro revival that's swept the dance-music world.

Much of the time that's just swell. The leadoff track, "Music: Response," is a seamless trip back to 1985, complete with vocoderized singing and Morse-code beeps. And Sumner's "Out of Control" replicates the thrill of hearing the gloomy Joy Division morph into a swell synthpop band. But without the propulsion that their trademark aggression usually provides, the Chems just barely come up with enough ideas to carry the listener all the way through an album, much less rock a dance floor for an hour at a time. --Jeff Salamon