The follow-up to Dig Your Own Hole has finally arrived...and while I can't see anyone building a religion around it, it's going to spend a lot of time in a lot of people's CD players over the next few months. Surrender is a "bigger" album than Dig... in many ways -- more ideas, expanded sound, higher expectations, etc. -- but it struck me as being a more intimate experience, as if Tom and Ed had decided to play directly to the personal stereo brigade, occasionally shunning Sensory Overload mode for musical roads less traveled. "Music: Response" and "Orange Wedge" should delight fans of twanky analog melodies, while "Under the Influence" delivers big beat goods on a sonic shoestring, first squeezing the most from a minimum of sonic elements, then combining them in a floor-igniting conflagration. "Out of Control" is probably one of the most highly-anticipated cuts, teaming the Chems with the vocal talents of Bobby Gillespie and New Order's unmistakable Bernard Sumner. Once you've finished wondering if one of this song's central samples is a heavily processed guitar or an uncredited appearance by Chewbacca, you can chart twenty years of dance music trends along its rhythm track. Epic-length "The Sunshine Underground" is a langourous affair; it doesn't "kick in" until the mid-point has passed, but when the power finally switches on it wastes no time jumping to light speed. The snail-paced ballad "Asleep from Day" is a particularly pleasant surprise. Not only is Beth Orton nowhere in sight -- vocals are supplied by Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval, who uses reverb like other people use life support machines -- but the song proves that the Brothers' ability to craft pop songs doesn't depend entirely upon big beats and samples. The album-closing triumvirate of "Hey Boy Hey Girl", "Surrender" and "Dream On" will not disappoint those accustomed to the Chems' tradition of "big" endings. Surrender isn't faultless -- it's dull at a few points, formulaic in a number of others -- but as an album that's going to be hyped down our collective throats for most of the summer, it's easy to swallow.