An album that fades in – grinding and beeping like a space shuttle returning to Earth – Born in the Echoes is the first LP in five years from the Chemical Brothers. It's a journey back home for the big beat or stadium dance duo, just like that spaceship intro implies, and one with all the necessary mutations. The dark, otherworldly, and prog rock sounds that kept many away from their 2010 release Further are back, although here they're framed much more attractively. Inspiration, innovation, and a well-chosen group of guest vocalists are rolled out sensibly, schooling the current EDM crowd on how to craft an album while balancing the heavy songs. With the hallucinatory, interlude-like "Taste of Honey" giving way to the Cate Le Bon feature on the Meco-meets-Nico title track, this album ebbs and flows as if the '70s Pink Floyd hadn't ignored disco. Speaking of, "Under Neon Lights" with St. Vincent as a robot siren is either Studio 54 on shrooms or The Matrix on acid. As usual, none of it is too garish even with all the loudness and chaos, and some of it is quite gothy and dark, including "EML Ritual" with Ali Love helping execute a mainstream dance tune that coolly acknowledges the passed-on genre of "witch house."

Manic Street Preachers have always been a band of very specific charms, something that has not translated outside of the U.K. particularly well. Although it boasts a generous 20 tracks, the 2002 compilation Forever Delayed isn't likely to change that situation, even if it has the lion's share of their big singles, since a band devoted to sloganeering doesn't play outside of their province, or era, without some knowledge of their context…

No need to worry about Apollo 440 turning intelligent in the wake of electronica's growing experimental leanings. Their third album overall, Getting High on Your Own Supply is a ride through sampladelic breakbeat that's just as mad as 1997's Electro Glide in Blue. Seemingly oblivious that even their youngest listeners could spot their samples, Apollo 440 pillage Led Zeppelin and Status Quo (among others), blending styles from trance, ska, hip-hop, dub, and disco with a tossed-off feel that's quite charming. From the breakout single "Stop the Rock" to the unabashed, old-school silliness of "Cold Rock the Mic" and a remix of last year's "Lost in Space" theme which fuses black metal with jungle breakbeats, Getting High on Your Own Supply is another dumb but infectious party album to file alongside Fatboy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby.