MMaybe no one will believe the Hartnoll brothers the next time they announce they’re going their separate ways again, after playing at least two “last” gigs. No matter. As electronic dance duo Orbital, Phil and Paul Hartnoll presided over the birth of British rave culture, and they’ve earned the right to as many victory laps as they want. Almost 33 years after the breakthrough first single Carillonthis three-hour celebration runs through their 1990s catalog, adapting it to today’s dance floors for their last tour.
Much of it is fairly dispensable, with new songs Smileys and generic, lackluster Acid Horse, offering little of the gift for transcendent melody wrapped around hard beats that made Orbital so iconic. Fortunately, the tour-ready updates of Chime, Impact (The Earth Is Burning) and Halcyon + On + On are far more engaging, and a trippy, tense Belfast rivals the original for quality. The remix discs herald their decent taste among collaborators, with Logic1000, David Holmes and Brazilian techno powerhouse Anna providing solid touches. Too bad, though, that there are five takes on Belfast, but no room for new versions of the impossibly pretty classics from the Lush 3 and Kinetic brothers.
