Underworld

Barking (Cooking Vinyl)

By Joanna McNaney
Published: September 17th, 2010 | 7:00pm

Barking, the new album by British electronic duo Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, aka Underworld, is quite possibly their finest since 1996’s Second Toughest in the Infants (Junior Boys Own) or 1999’s Beaucoup Fish.

The band has been together for over twenty years, first coming into the mainstream in the mid-‘90s with the track “Born Slippy .NUXX,” which was featured in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. To this day, the duo hasn’t lost any of the strength from their earlier recordings. On Barking, cuts like “Always Loved a Film” and “Scribble” highlight what they do best, giving fans hard-hitting techno and house music that makes people want to get up and dance. “Hamburg Hotel,” another choice track, has excellent synth work reminiscent of Kraftwerk’s Computer World (Kling Klang).

One of the best things about Underworld is that unlike some electronic musicians, they’re actually able to duplicate their recordings in concert, which their live album Everything, Everything (V2) can attest to. One can only imagine how excellent the duo’s international tour this fall will be.

__

Underworld official Web site

Underworld MySpace page

Cooking Vinyl