Behold! They’re coming back,” says a hypnotic voice at the start of Come With Us. They, in this case, would be the Chemical Brothers, the duo that, five years ago, helped usher in the bass-heavy, fun-loving style of dance music known as big-beat. Of course if all had gone according to plan in the fickle and hype-driven world of popular music, such a dramatic re-introduction may not have been needed.

Electronica was supposed to be pop music’s savior back in 1997, and the Chemical Brothers were supposed to be the genre’s block-rocking messiahs. Well, it’s five years later and the genre still hasn’t quite taken over.

Don’t look for Come With Us to revitalize the genre. It is an underwhelming affair that, at its best, shows the promise of what dance music could be and, at its worst, wallows in the repetition and unimaginativeness that has plagued electronica since its outset.

After their commercial breakthrough, the dance-floor-anthem filled Dig Your Own Hole, the Brothers released Surrender, a more cerebral affair that may have not prospered in the hottest clubs of Ibiza, but definitely sounded more like a complete album rather than a bunch of raved-up beats. Come With Us attempts to combine the best aspects of those two albums, but the results sound more like leftovers than new creations.

There are a few bright spots, including the singles “It Began In Afrika” and “Star Guitar.” The former is a six-minute-plus orgy of off-kilter tribal beats, wild animal growls and some guy repeating, “It began in Afrika-ka-ka-ka-ka,” just enough times to not get too grating; the latter is a euphoric, dreamy track that unites over-the-top orchestration (imagine Phil Spector gone psychedelic) with modern break-beats to sound like the musical equivalent of floating on a bed of marshmallows while strung out on the most mind-bending new rave drugs. The equally trippy and triumphant “Pioneer Skies” would be the perfect accompaniment to a future Olympic gold-medal montage, mark my words.

But the minuses do outweigh the pluses. Two of the biggest disappointments are the token guest vocalist tracks. Beth Orton does her best to lift-up “The State We’re In,” but the song ends up sounding like a jumble of overproduced vocals and pointless electronic noodling. Former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft rhymes “that” with “that” over a lazy and repetitious beat that makes “The Test” a complete failure. “Hoops” sounds like a fake Beta Band file you’d find while searching AudioGalaxy. Of course, in that case, you could quickly delete it.

The essence of what’s wrong with the album is symbolized through the sleep-inducing “Denmark.” It’s monotonous, it’s boring, it’s the reason dance music has not caught on outside of clubs. If the Chemical Brothers want us to come with them, they’re going to have to be a bit more adventurous next time. nyou