(Orbital Music/Stomp)

It seems appropriate that stadium-straddling UK live techno duo Orbital (brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll) have chosen 2004 as their year to call it a day after countless laps around the globe and seven studio albums (not to mention numerous EPs). After all, in many ways it was Orbital’s groundbreakingly well-received live set almost exactly ten years ago at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival that secured their rapidly rising reputation, as well as paving the way for countless live electronic outfits that followed in their wake (the Chemical Brothers, as they’ve often confessed in interviews, were taking notes).

While Orbital’s most recent album ‘The Altogether’ showed Orbital honing down their signature epic ten minutes-plus tracks down to more immediately digestible (and no doubt more radio-friendly) creations that flirted with pop and vocal collaborations with the likes of David Gray, Jonah Hex and even a sampled snatch of Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, this latest album shows the duo returning to the epic grandeur of their earlier work. Aptly titled ‘The Blue Album’ in a distinct tip of the hat to Orbital’s first two albums ‘Orbital 1’ and ‘Orbital 2’ (dubbed by fans respectively as the ‘Green’ and ‘Brown’ albums), it certainly recalls the widescreen and orchestral moments of early Orbital more closely than recent tracks upon initial listening. Because Orbital had also recently been freed from their previous recording contract with FFRR (under which they’d released all six of their previous albums), this latest album emerges through their own Orbital Music label – allowing them to work without deadlines or record label intervention.

Opening track ‘Transient’ slowly unfurls proceedings with plangent synthetic bass chords and dubbed-out bleeps giving way to stately violin and cello that calls to mind Phillip Glass-influenced minimal orchestration more closely than anything else, swelling grand strings rising through a backdrop of dubbed-out electronic clicks, buzzes and thuds. In direct contrast to this rather delicate and graceful beginning, ‘Pants’ locks straight down into icy yet deeply groovy electro, with epic pads and fluttering percussion swirling around a tight backdrop of punching beats, a vaguely rockist distorted synth riff riding that curious camel-walk tempo featured in classic Orbital moments such as ‘The Saint’ and ‘Middle Of Nowhere.’

‘Tunnel Vision’ ratchets up the bpms for a darkly chaotic ride into paranoid buzzing synths that sound like they’re close to overload, factory-line beats slamming along over a hardcore-infused backdrop of roaring synthetic noise that’s one of this album’s most thrilling moments, but just as things are getting ready to explode, ‘Lost’ drops the pace back down for a glacial downtempo wander through dubbed-out ambience that calls to mind some of Brian Eno’s productions, a throbbing ‘Rhythm and Stealth’-era Leftfield sub-bass pulse and slow skeletal beats gliding along beneath the ringing tones and sustained notes.

Seven-minute track ‘You Lot’ also provides another of this album’s best moments, with punching repetitive trashcan beats tracing their way through trademark Orbital synth riffs that bring to mind ‘The Box’ from their fantastic ‘In Sides’ album, an epic sampled speech from British TV actor Christopher Eccleston (apparently the new Doctor Who) decrying scientists who manipulate genetic material without recourse for the possible later consequences (“if you want the position of God than take the responsibility”) giving way to vocoded twisted robo-vocals, clicking 808 beats and icy synths. Given Orbital’s past association with Dr. Who, it seems especially appropriate. Just as things are building to a peak however, ‘Bath Time’ sort of stops things in their tracks a bit as it were – while it’s a perfectly capable downtempo moment from Orbital that also somehow calls to mind the wide-eyed innocence of Lemon Jelly’s outings, it does unfortunately make for a bit of strange track sequencing, sitting directly between two of the most hi-octane moments on this album, and also comes across as slightly ‘Orbital-by-numbers’ compared to many of the inspired moments here. ‘Acid Pants’ is definitely the most furious and pounding track on this album, throwing a sampled vocal hook and unhinged cackling from eccentric US duo Sparks (“when the laugh track starts / then the fun starts”) down into acid-squiggle infused hammering techno territory – it’s a bit like being trapped in a bullet-train being driven by an insane person, and I mean that in a really good way.

But just as things appear to be shifting into a even higher gear, Kraftwerk-y electro stabs flying back and forth, the pace drops back down once again, with ‘Easy Serv’ unfortunately providing another of this album’s more generic moments, fusing Henry Mancini-style orchestration with synthesised vibraphone and beatbox rhythms that once again would have worked a lot better had the sequencing of this album been changed slightly. While there are no out-and-out weak moments on ‘The Blue Album’, the second half of this album makes for an extremely stop-start listening experience, as each of the three progressively more and more uptempo and pounding tracks are each partitioned by tracks that represent the slowest, most ambient tracks on this disc. Finally epic nine-minute closing track (and recent single) ‘One Perfect Sunrise’ provides a perfect outro for the last album ever from the brothers Orbital, fusing the ethereal voice of former Dead Can Dance vocalist Lisa Gerrard over wafting synth pads and a tech-breakbeat that calls to mind Underworld’s ‘Pearl’s Girl’, while also most closely resembling Orbital’s own stellar classic ‘Halcyon and On’, epic synths racing their way to a glorious finish.

‘The Blue Album’ is a solid final album from the brothers Hartnoll that in many ways distills down the different sides of Orbital’s musical personality into a single document, taking in their more elegant explorations into the orchestrated grandeur of composers such as Phillip Glass and Michael Nyman, while also injecting a dose of the stomping android electro-techno that has fuelled their hi-octane live shows over the past decade. Having said that, there’s an underlying slight sense that no real boundaries are being pushed here, and ‘The Blue Album’ in many ways feels a goodbye more than anything else – a sonic ‘photo album’ of sorts, cataloguing some of the many past Orbital flavours. Having said that, it’s a fairly strong goodbye – albeit one that could easily have been even stronger given a slight rejiggle of the track sequencing.

Check out: www.loopz.co.uk