Chimpomatic

Hurray for techno! It's a least twenty years old now by most reckoning, and rather lazily speaking, Underworld are the best known UK exponents of this genre thanks largely to the success of Born Slippy and it's immaculate placement in the movie of Trainspotting. And a curious position they hold - leaning very much towards the progressive side of things, but thankfully never straying down Rue de Eurotrance - they've always had a somewhat melancholy edge to their music which has meant they can sound a little too serious for that post-clubbing meltdown in the sofa at home.

Their new album delivers a similar experience to Secondtoughestintheinfants (2nd "proper album") - a very solid record which will give Underworld fans what they want. Opening tracks Crocodile and Beautiful Burnout are classic Underworld, before things take a bit more of a housey turn with Holding the Moth - which puts me in mind of the Music For Freaks label. Ring Road is a new take on Karl Hyde's streamofconciousness approach, and Boy Boy Boy sounds like the most original thing here, after which the whole album winds down in pace.

Overall though, this record is unlikely to win very many new fans given that dance music is not as mainstream as it was the last time Underworld released an album. It doesn't mean this album is any the worse for that - in fact it's rather good - but as exponents of a 20 year old musical form which is starting to feel (gasp!) a bit retro, Rick Smith and Karl Hyde may well find themselves classed as underground once more.