I received an email today announcing the new Chemical Brothers’ website. I’m a big fan and want to point out while their website is terrible, it doesn’t make me like their music any less.

In conjunction with the release of their new album ‘Push The Button’ Tom & Ed launch their new web site:

It’s choc full of new areas, so as well as news, tour dates and the message board you can now download wallpaper and buddy icons, there is a mobile area for all your ringtunes, you can check out all your favourite tunes and videos and there will also be a fully fledged shop for all your Chems needs. The new site will be up from midday GMT on the 7th January so have a look round and let us know your thoughts via the feedback section

However, the site is an accessibility nightmare. I don’t know of any accessibility rules it doesn’t break. You can’t even get into the site without allowing pop-ups (and obviously Javascript to generate the pop-ups), so there goes half of their audience already. It then proceeds to resize your browser to around 800×600 minus scrollbars and toolbars, which it removes anyway. Oh yes, it’s all done in Flash too. Navigation is a nightmare. One positive is that they do label the link to their discography, which is a PDF, as a PDF so that you know what you are getting in to.

I for one will not be visiting their site again, but I’m looking forward to seeing them at the Big Day Out.