UNDERWORLD - Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future

Inspired once again, Underworld forcefully reclaim their place at the centre of the current global electronic scene with a varied, multifaceted record. Not everything shines as brightly as in their golden years, granted, but the opening is immediately convincing, with the rock-oriented approach of "I Exhale".

The effectively declamatory pattern of "If Rah" is followed by the pulsing groove of "Low Burn", exactly the track long-time Underworld fans would have wished for today (well, here it is, wish granted), a collective propitiatory rite that rekindles old memories (perhaps a little faded) of endless raves and Ibizan beaches - the real reason we're drawn to a new record by the veteran duo in 2016.

Midway through the tracklist, "Santiago Cuatro" is an acoustically-tinged landscape seasoned with ethnic flavours, the bridge into the second half of the album, which is markedly softer and more atmospheric, unfolding through the ambient-cinematic scenery (a touch too monochrome) of "Motorhome" and the equally soft and dispensable midtempo of "Ova Nova", before the closing dance-pop drift of "Nylon Strung" brings everyone back onto the dancefloor for one last elegant (if vaguely melancholy) spin.

If you were twenty years old in the '90s and lived through, or at least got a whiff of, the club culture of that era, you won't be able to help falling in love with a record like this.

The first half earns a solid 7 (and then some), the second clings on by its fingernails to a bare 6: if what Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have put together here doesn't turn out to be a shining future (though they've long since secured their peace of mind thanks to three decades of work), at the very least we're looking at a present that gives no indication of an early retirement - quite the opposite, in fact.

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17/03/2016