Stylus Magazine’s review of last year’s Oblivion With Bells criticized Underworld for now being permanently stuck in the ‘morning after’ phase. Fortunately, their latest album is more of a success than A Hundred Days Off, and to my ears it might be one of their best. Don’t believe the reviews. Most of that Stylus review is wrong. There’ll be people that tell you the lyrics don’t hang together. Wrong again. They just don’t recognise themselves in them. After the singular dance-oriented landscape of their earlier work, Underworld are now exploring what it means to write a song – by removing the unnecessary musical utensils, leaving the barest accompaniments to Karl Hyde’s sometimes rambling lyrics, making his words and delivery even more fundamental to their style. Streamlined. Refined.

Faxed Invitation is a track which is almost an incidental. It begins with the merest throb of a bass drum and delicate percussion. Over the course of the next three minutes it becomes fuller: the pinging bassline grows a melody and the weedy pad joins in. It’s just a head nodding experience, which given more time to develop could have turned into something quite brilliant. Karl Hyde’s vocals are typically encoded, the lyrics the usual cracked snapshots of urban life – overlapping scenarios, half-rendered and scratchy.

Oblivion With Bells – iTunes
Amazon UK