Marine Parade/Jam Recordings

Let me (ahem) break it down for you. If you are into dance music enough to buy a DJ mix album, pay serious attention to sneaker fashion, or, indeed, know who Adam Freeland is, stop reading this and go buy Now and Them. Put it on the essential crossover purchase list along with Underworld, Fatboy Slim and Daft Punk. Rest assured that instantly accessible big beat anthems and deep house headtrips laced with cult samples will earn it hi rotation as a pre-, post- and peak- party disc. But if you’re wondering whether a breaks jock can reinvent himself as the third Chemical Brother without turning into the Bomfunk MCs, then the answer is: just barely.

Punk gets bandied about a lot on the press release and it also shows up in the chorus of catchy-as-cholera SNAP!-rap “Heel’n’Toe,” which is what the Chems’ “Music-Response” would sound like if the Beastie Boys had thought of it first. What is punk about Now and Them is not its production, which is clean and shiny, but its Ramonesish simplicity. In that sense the Beastie Boys are a big influence on this album, as pastmasters of making hooks without melodies. That bloody single is a perfect example, with its unhummable “Fitter, Happier,” Ben Benassi vocal, capped by an anthemic Bill Hicks sample in place of a bridge. This tactic is probably most familiar from CJ Bolland or Death in Vegas, a comparison that is not discouraged by the use of chunky epic guitar riffs on “We Want Your Soul” and “Mind Killer.” These tunes, and “Heel’n’Toe” which fits in the same basket, are competent and catchy as hell but eat the dust of, well, Exit Planet Dust. One-dimensional raps on a couple of these tracks from Juice Aleem and Toastie of New Flesh, Cage of Smut Peddlers and Justin G of Wales, do give them some added longevity.

Many other genres of radio-friendly dance music are also dusted off for Freeland’s self-proclaimed crossover attempt, with dirty churning techno from the Jega/Techno Animal songbook featuring on “Mind Killer,” and a more minimal metallic purism informing the Layo + Bushwacka! nod, “Big Wednesday.” One less generic gem on the album is Ben E. King cover “Supernatural Thing,” which teams Allison David’s burly soul vocal with abrasive tech riffs and a driving breakbeat. It’s very similar to and every bit as good as The Propellerheads’ “History Repeating.”

Deeper, sweatier and more dilated o’clocks are explored in the last few tracks. “L.I.F.E.,” with its hallucinated vocal, tribal breaks and hi-res laser synths trained unerringly on your serotonin, would not have been out of place on Hybrid’s Wide Angle. Next Freeland switch from lasers to depth charges for the last track, “Now,” which drops a reggae vocal in with some very glossy dub. Breaktrance segues into trancehall, and suddenly you are left with “use the music” echoing in your ears, wondering when you strayed from the breaks bar into the trashed room, when Adam Freeland became a band, and whether it makes any difference. Now and Them fronts like it’s kickin’ out the jams, but in the end it’s about as insurgent as the Prodigy. And if you still remember what “Voodoo People” sounded like in 1995 – like God himself coming down from heaven to smite Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Temple of the Whatever – then you know that ain’t necessarily a bad thing.

Check out an interview with Adam Freeland on his band’s first release here and a review of the single “We Want Your Soul” here.