In 1991, Orbital's first album began with a sample from Star Trek. "There is the theory of the moebius," it solemnly stated. "A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop from which there is no escape." Thirteen years on, it seems that Orbital have surrendered themselves to that twist for their final album.
"Blue Album" features a similar graphic design to that debut (aka the "Green Album") and its 1992 follow-up (the "Brown Album"). More pertinently, the music it contains is strikingly similar: beautiful, ornate techno, at once thoughtful and immediate, elegant and bombastic, related to both Kraftwerk and Michael Nyman. After 13 years as the stadium aesthetes of British dance, Paul and Phil Hartnoll have looped back to the point where they began.
It proves to be a deeply satisfying piece of regression therapy. From a position as one of the most thrilling groups of the '90s, Orbital have hardly covered themselves in glory of late, thanks to 1999's spotty "Middle Of Nowhere" and 2001's distinctly poor "The Altogether".
"Blue Album", mercifully, disposes with most of the ill-chosen collaborators and samples (no David Gray or Tool this time) and crushingly zany covers like the "Doctor Who" theme. The emphasis here is on that aqueous extrapolation of acid that first brought the duo to prominence. Sparks turn up for a guest spot, but their eccentricities are subsumed into a 303 squelchfest called, pointedly, "Acid Pants". The only big misstep is the cheesy goth-trance of "One Perfect Sunrise" featuring Lisa Gerrard, which strives a little too hard for those quintessential Glastonbury vibrations.
Mainly, though, the "Blue Album" proves that Orbital's pulsating sound has dated far better than most would have assumed, and that their gift for shoehorning critiques of religion and geopolitics into straightforwardly euphoric music remains undimmed. Hence "You Lot", which packs a sermon from Christopher Eccleston (and Russell T Davies' TV series, The Second Coming) into one of their best rave-ups since 1993's "Impact USA (The Earth Is Burning)".
A dignified and enjoyable end to a frequently astonishing career.
