release date: Sep. 1, 2008
format: 2 lp vinyl (reissue, XDUSTLP9) / 2 cd
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: The Chemical Brothers
label: Freestyle Dust / Virgin - nationality: England, UK
2 lp vinyl compilation by The Chemical Brothers following the release of We Are the Night (Aug. 2007), and then also a follow-up to the duo's first compilation Singles 93 - 03 (Sep. 2003). The album comes with a sticker saying: 'The Definitive Singles Collection'. The 2-disc cd issue comes with 10 additional tracks placed on Disc 2 labelled 'Electronic Battle Weapons 1-10'. These tracks are not titled other than e.g. "Electronic Battle Weapon 1" and so forth but they have all been issued as special mixes of well-known compositions, i.e. "Electronic Battle Weapon 3" is a special mix of "Under the Influence" from Surrender (Jun. 1999). This also means that Disc 1 is identical to the double vinyl album counting 15 tracks.
It's a strong collection of great and familiar compositions. My only complaint is that many tracks overlap, i.e. "Hey Boy Hey Girl", "Block Rockin' Beats", "Star Guitar", "Let Forever Be", "Leave Home", "Out of Control", "The Golden Path", "Setting Sun", "Chemical Beats" - that is: 9 out of 15 tracks overlapping with a five year older compilation, which had more tracks (not counting the cd issue, that is). Isn't that a bit too many? Well, it depends, I guess, 'cause the intention is surely to throw out an updated singles collection. Unfortunately, only six other tracks are found from later releases. Then, so be it. It's my first compilation on vinyl by the band, so I can easily live with that, and it's still a pretty awesome collection.
