(FORTUNE Magazine) – Chemical Brothers Surrender Astralwerks

Listening to the Chemical Brothers can be like that scene in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta stabs a syringeful of adrenaline into Uma Thurman's chest. You can usually rely on their big-beat electronic music to get you up and at 'em--pronto.

On their 1995 bass-crazy debut, Exit Planet Dust, and their sensational follow-up, Dig Your Own Hole, two years later, the deejay duo from Manchester, England, avoided technomusic's tendency to devolve into a sterile collage of bleeps, turning out blistering ear candy.

But with their eagerly awaited new disk, Surrender, the Brothers (Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons) have mixed a dreary cocktail of NyQuil-ized psychedelia that overflows with noodling-to-nowhere knob-twirling. With the exception of the instant classic "Let Forever Be" (sung by Oasis' Noel Gallagher and anchored by a drum track seemingly lifted from the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows"), Surrender sadly lives down to its title.

--C.N.

ALBERT MOBILIO is a freelance writer; JAMES PONIEWOZIK is media editor for Salon; Jeff Gordinier and CHRIS NASHAWATY are senior writer and staff writer, respectively, at Entertainment Weekly.