Underworld

The bangers and mind-bending delights continue from Underworld on this, the fourth installment of the band’s Drift Project.

The first song, Listen To Their No, doesn’t quite do it for me, but there’s a sonic joyousness on display, it’s a bright – lovely – production. Just a bit of a nothing-song.

But that’s instantly fixed with Schiphol Test which manages to touch on their mid/late-90s rave-era classics whilst also channeling that Bowie streak that informs so much of what Karl Hyde says in his singing, or sings in his writing.

Hundred Weight Hammer almost feels like something you’d hear on a Sleaford Mods album – and has a Prince-like carboot-funk to it.

Doris trips us back to the light-ambient feels that are in the spaces between the bangers on the 90s Underworld albums. It’s delicate and warm.

Altitude Dub is this album’s near-throwback to Freur and the era of the earliest Underworld records where moody pop music was still the going concern.

And the closer, Border Country, is Born Slippy if Bowie was fronting. It’s club-majestic.

This series is almost all killer, certainly there’s barely any filler. And it’s constantly inspiring to me to hear a band this late in their career acting like time is just a line to hang more musical notes around.

The weave of this is hypnotic. Propulsive. Inspiring.

To read a review of Drift Episode 1 – DUST click here

To read a review of Drift Episode 2 – ATOM click here

To read a review of Drift Episode 3 – HEART click here