Tom Simons and Ed Rowlands rocked, remixed, snorted, caned and hammered the past decade of heavy-duty dance music into life. They were the superstar DJs of choice, from the Heavenly Social to Glastonbury. Their dissenters like to point out that Tom’n’Ed are really well-spoken students with too many famous mates who make dance music that appeals to, ugh, rock fans.

Right. And? They also created some of the most innovative and plain thrilling pop noises of recent years. Early tunes such as Song to the Siren still sound like euphoric stampedes. The inspired collision of hip-hop drum loops and acid house bleeps recalls the early years of electro, when block-rocking beats still meant propulsive party anthems and not Big Beat copycats.

Cool showbiz friends have certainly brought out the best and the worst in the Chemicals. The body-slamming techno typhoon Setting Sun still sounds like an epochal assault on the senses, Noel Gallagher’s vocal transforming it into a witty broadside against Britpop’s bloodless nostalgia. New Order’s Bernard Sumner weighs in on the disco-trance projectile Out of Control. It sounds shaky at first, but grows more addictive with each spin. Elsewhere, though, Richard Ashcroft and the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne meander towards pedestrian compromise.

A distinct recycling of ideas mars the later tracks, while die-hards might question the omission of the fizzing Tim Burgess collaboration Life is Sweet, electroclash bruisers such as Music: Response, or even the manicured throb of It Began in Afrika. But these are minor flaws in an otherwise thrill-heavy retrospective. Here’s to another class-A decade.

(Virgin)

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