Even though its been 12 years since "Born Slippy (Nuxx)", Underworld will probably always live in the shadow of its biggest and most exhilarating song. That's a compromise many big-hit bands must make in exchange for the right to soldier on, and to their credit, Underworld have gone about their post-lager lager years admirably. Rather than try to recreate the magic with a procession of anthemic retreads or barnacle themselves hopefully onto some fashionable new sound, they've used various extracurricular activities to quietly expand their scope.
This began with 2000's live CD/DVD Everything, Everything, an ambitious and generous multimedia package that was obviously a labor of love rather than a label cash-in, and has continued in various other areas. Throughout the years, the band has issued a series of free digital releases under the umbrella title The Riverrun Project, they've scored films for directors Anthony Minghella and Trainspotting's Danny Boyle, and they've maintained close ties to dirtyradio.net, the online radio station they helped build. In an interview with Mixmag last month, singer Karl Hyde gave every indication there was even more cross-media stuff-- such as free downloads, book releases, and online TV programmes-- still to come.
But while Underworld obviously haven't been lacking for inspiration over the past decade, their musical output has flagged. Where Everything, Everything and the subsequent departure of longtime member Darren Emerson should have set the table for the next phase in their career, the record that followed-- 2002's A Hundred Days Off-- was a bloodless, by-the-numbers affair that suggested they were limping indifferently to the finish line. Although it's been heartening to hear their subsequent admission that that record left something to be desired, skepticism is probably the deserved default mode when it comes to Underworld circa 2007.
Sure, the more fully-formed Oblivion With Bells marks an improvement over A Hundred Days Off. The fact that its artwork so closely resembles that of their 1993 breakthrough Dubnobasswithmyheadman (which, along with 1996's Second Toughest in the Infants, has held up tremendously well with time) is no happy accident; Oblivion plays like a conscious attempt to invoke the sprawling glories of their early 90s heydeys while still nudging their sound forward.
In some ways, they succeed. Where a lot of their early 90s, dance culture-reared contemporaries have struggled with the album format, the rock-oriented Underworld have always thrived. Even with less-than-compelling material, you always got the sense that they had a firm grasp on how to write and structure music for the long-play format. Oblivion With Bells is no exception. It builds, sustains, and recedes with the same expert touch that defined the band's early records.
When Underworld are on, they sound great. First single and opening track "Crocodile" blends sunny, trancey synth arpeggios with a grinding rhythm and a big chorus; the subtly shifting "Beautiful Burnout" recalls some of Second Toughest's best moments in the way it moves deftly between movements; and the gently percolating "Glam Bucket" suggests that Hyde and the boys have been listening to a bit of Border Community.
Unfortunately, though, while they sound brighter and more alive than they have in a while, their default mode still leans a little too heavily on Hyde's increasingly silly beat poetry and the kind of unashamedly booming drums that haven't sounded exciting since, well, 1997. From the cringeworthy "Ring Road" (which, Primitive Radio Gods fans, sounds distressingly a heck of a lot like "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand") to the brokedown Dave Gahanisms of "Boy, Boy, Boy", a little too much of Oblivion With Bells is mired in weird alt-rock/trip-hop crossover no man's land. Was it really reasonable to expect any more from Underworld? Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, Oblivion With Bells has enough interesting things going on to suggest that Underworld haven't fallen as far as, say, the Chemical Brothers. But if the band's really half as ambitious as Hyde intimates, that shouldn't be nearly enough.
