Album #80 : Underworld - Second Toughest In The Infants

Underworld

Second Toughest In The Infants (1996)

Underworld are famous amongst most music fans for two songs - late 80s synth/guitar hit Underneath the Radar and mid-90s progressive trance masterpiece Born Slippy. NUXX, famously found in the movie Trainspotting. However, they are one of the most well-credentialled, and longest serving, electronic bands still going today. The group themselves refer to having a Mark I (the guitar/synth electropop band) and a Mark II (the electronic creatives).

Second Toughest In The Infants was Underworld's fourth studio album, though only the second Mark II release (where Karl Hyde and Rick Smith were joined by Darren Emerson). It smashed onto the UK club music scene, picking up where their previous release, dubnobasswithmyheadman, left off. 

Now, my previous experiences with EDM have not been positive....so I'm hoping this will go slightly better.

The Album

I needn't have worried, because Second Toughest In The Infants is bloody brilliant. Yep, I just used the word 'brilliant' to describe a dance music album. 

The album manages, for the most part, to combine thumping beats, melodic synthesisers and abrasive basslines into several gloriously sprawling dance anthems. In fact, anthemic is the perfect word to describe some of the album's choice tunes. Karl Hyde's vocals, and the constant use of nonsensical free-association poetry and stream-of-consciousness ramblings for lyrics are perfectly suited to the progressive trance songs within; especially as those vocals are usually disguised by studio effects and assorted trickery.

The first two tracks take half an hour. The interestingly titled Juanita: Kiteless: To Dream Of Love (so titled because it is three compositions fused into one long, sixteen minute anthem) is a perfect example of how dance music can combine melody, groove, emotion and skill. Given its structure, it goes through a few distinct phases; it weaves through house, progressive trance and drum and bass sections with ease. There are slightly less intense synthesiser portions at times, acting as counterpoints to the heavy drum and bass; Hyde's echoey, distant voice is there, everpresent, but acting as just another layer of sound. Banstyle - Sappy's Curry is markedly different; it's a fifteen minute ambient chillout song. Starting with a laidback drum and bass vibe, it eventually segues into an even more laidback, Spanish-style picked guitar melody with eerie synth chords floating above. There's a particularly electric moment when a synthesiser solo plays, sounding like a Commodore 64 gone haywire.

After the incredibly dull Confusion The Waitress, Underworld give us three of the most thumping club-ready progressive trance anthems you'll hear in the one place. Rowla is extraordinarily abrasive with pumping beats, buzzy synth bass and fist-in-the-air synth chords; Pearl's Girl is the best of the three, with some wicked breakbeats forming the rhythm. Mostly, the synthesisers are set to 'trance anthemia', with a small break at about seven minutes, taking the intensity down a notch with more ambient-style synth, before returning to Trancetown; and Air Towel is more of the same, and that is not a bad thing. All three, however, retain a real sense of melody and musicality despite being just 'songs you dance to'.

The final two tracks represent Underworld's chillout side. Although Blueski is not really that interesting, being a constantly repeated, never shifting looped guitar break, final track Stagger takes the progressive trance ideal and slows it down about 80%, then adds in some Eno-lite ambience and the odd prog rock-style synthesiser lick. It's the sort of song that, nowadays, would be pumped out on 'pop' radio as a 'pop' song, and Underworld were producing it almost twenty years ago as an album's slowdown tune.

The Verdict

Fuck Skrillex. You want pumping dance music that's also musically interesting? This album is what you want. It demonstrates perfectly Underworld's sense of musical aesthetics combined with knowing what makes a party room tick. It's top notch trance music that's varied and interesting.

Proper bloody EDM, in other words.

(Oh. By the way. Some may be wondering, "Where's Born Slippy?" Well, it was a non-album single, and released later as a bonus disc with this album, but it wasn't on the original...so it's not part of the review.)

My rating: ****

Standout Tracks

Pearl's Girl

Stagger

Juanita: Kiteless: To Dream Of Love

The next album is the debut by a criminally underrated Washington indie troupe. It's an album I've never heard, so I'm looking forward to finding out where the group started.