This review covers the breakbeat track The Chemical Brothers – Life Is Sweet.
This track was released in 1995 on the album Exit Planet Dust.
The track starts with a filtered guitar. From there, a breakbeat drum kit comes in along with some subtle scratches. Additional scratches make an appearance. After that, the vocals come in for a verse. The track builds up part way through. Several synths come in and a brief instrumental section comes in. After this, the guitar returns along with some voice samples. A few effects is also added.
From there, the vocals come in for a second verse. Some backup vocals make an appearance. This is capped off with another instrumental section featuring a number of voice samples. The instrumental section drops to the guitar and voice samples again.
After that, the vocals go into the main chorus. A part of the vocals have some filtering added to it.
From there, the guitar drops out and some other sounds come in to the track as the vocals continue on with a verse. An instrumental section then takes over, sometimes dropping to just the drum kit. Some extra sounds are added along with a few added percussion’s. The main drum kit drops out and the added percussion’s persist along with some of the other sounds. After that, the added sound is all that’s left as the rest of the elements drop out. This gradually fades out.
One thing I do notice about this track is that it follows a rather unusual flow. Sometimes, a main chorus comes in and it’s not even emphasized. A verse is sometimes in and the backing elements would make it seem like its a main chorus when it’s not. As a result, the track has a much more fluid and experimental sound. This sort of relegates this track to being useful to back something else in a subtle manner more than anything else which already holds this track back by a fair bit.
The audio atmosphere is well realized. It has that very grungy, industrial, and otherworldly sound to it.
At the end of the day, however, this is not something I would find myself listening to over and over again. It relies too much on atmosphere to carry the track. The experimental nature of it just doesn’t really make this a very memorable track.
Overall, this is an alright track. It might work well as something to serve as a backing soundtrack to something else. On its own, however, it’s not something I would listen to over and over again. A decent track, but nothing that would last long.
Score
7/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
