The Chemical Brothers: "Dig Your Own Hole" (Virgin)

Dial-a-track code: 1201

If the Chemical Brothers didn't exist and someone set out to invent them, the subsequent second album would never have sounded like this. Most would have been content to continue reworking the successful trip-hop patents of Exit Planet Dust.

It's to Ed Simons's and Tom Rowlands's collective credit that they've come up with a brighter, brasher, louder, sexier second album. The basic elements may be the same but there's quite a jump in ambition and thrust between the two. If Exit Planet Dust was Independence Day, Dig Your Own Hole is Star Wars.

The two singles are perfect scene setters for the ebb and flow of Dig Your Own Hole's highly individual sway: Setting Sun's cranky cacophony and the old-school charm of Block Rockin' Beats marking the Chemicals as maverick beatmasters. It Doesn't Matter has funky heart and soul, the title track squelches with glee and Where Do I Begin has Beth Orton's best Nick Drake, take to date. The closing Private Psychedelic Reel is where the dance-rock interface discovers new possibilities and rockets to unchartered heights. Experimentation, excitement, brass, feedback, breakdowns and the kitchen sink: no-one remotely resembles the Chemical Brothers.