The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole (1997) [CD-Rip]

To follow up their bombastic 1995 album Exit Planet Dust, the Chemical Brothers fine-tuned their bombastic beats and produced a rock-solid pop album (pun intended). Dig Your Own Hole finds the common ground between rock & roll and techno, both in spirit and substance. Singles like "Block Rockin' Beats," "Elektrobank," and "Setting Sun" (featuring vocals by Oasis's Noel Gallagher) may lack the big hair and pomposity of rock music, but they make up for it in spades, with sampled and real guitars battling for space with sirens and distorted hip-hop drums. The album reeks of pure enthusiasm and energy, evoking a crowd-pleasing exuberance that makes Dig Your Own Hole a Back in Black for the late 1990s. Pure stadium techno. --Matthew Corwine