The veteran techno rave and electronica king pair Karl Hyde and Rick Smith return with one of their finest LPs of the 11 to date, a marvellous a miasma of metronomic beats, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, ambience, energy and ecstatic elevation. A capella vocals even come in the opener Black Poppies, a hymn-like call to embrace change, and in second later version of Denver Luna, while its mother version of it, the third track, is classic Born Slippy-era Underworld, with lyrics summoning surreal, dream-like images twisting and blurring in hallucinogenic fashion: “Satellite is coming with a/ Handgun and the tube hole tube snake/ Playgirl with a loophole a wire hole/ Kiss the animal/ The chains, the weeds, the train and the seeds and the/ Blue and the blue and the blue and the red and silver / Siren, siren, the horn, thе velveteen is comin'/ The stonеwash jean man crack/ Fractures cream machines he's dancin' with his / Ears on pierced he's comin' comin’ / Hissin' hissin' piston is …”. Other highlights include King of Haarlem, full of oddball rhyming slang; Techno Shinkansen, inspired by the famous Japanese bullet trains, perhaps also their own nod to Kraftwerk’s love of trains but with a heavy dose of Georgio Moroder bassline and lots of disco ball; a fresh rave classic in the form of the syncopated Sweet Lands Experience; and for deep head-nodding experience, the 9-minute plinky sounds of Gene Pool. For extra variety opera singer (and daughter of Rick Smith) Esme Bronwen-Smith’s co-producers and appears on various tracks including Ottavia, a spoken word version of the lament by Nero’s wife. But it’s the mesmeric beats that summon ecstatic feelings here, and Underworld seem to just keep coming back with the goods, wave after wave. Out on Smith Hyde Productions / Virgin Music.
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