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Freeplay: Underworld
By Cory Casciato
casciato@mscd.edu

Underworld Five Days of Heineken

For more than 10 years, Underworld has produced some of the best electronic dance music the world has ever seen. But it’s just dance music, right? It’s faceless, disposable and, really, doesn’t it all sound the same?

No way.

Their sound is singularly distinctive yet deep and varied. They’ve never allowed themselves to become complacent or be pigeonholed by expectations. They can produce driving four-on-the-floor house/trance beats or chunky, funky chopped-up breakbeats with equal ease. They are just as adept at creating memorable, hook-filled tunes as they are at dance-floor-filling, fist-pumping Ecstasy anthems. They disprove the notion that electronic acts founder in a live setting by consistently touring and building a reputation as an incendiary live act.

On Five Days of Heineken, a concert recorded in 2005 in Amsterdam and recently released as an Internet freebie, Underworld is in near-top form. The two-hour set covers most of their hits, such as “Pearls Girl” and “Rez/Cowgirl,” as well as newer material. Several of the tracks are either unreleased compositions or heavily modified and retitled versions of older songs. The recording quality is excellent, with just enough crowd noise to make it clear this is a live set.

Highlights include the opening track, “Darc,” an atmospheric track with a warm, organ-like bass line that oscillates up and down around the beat accompanied by intermittent splashes of guitarist Rich Smith’s spacey, Pink Floyd-esque guitar lines. Karl Hyde starts off singing in a straightforward, accessible manner but by the end of the song his voice is being filtered and layered until it becomes just another textural element. On “King of Snake,” the duo produces a sinuous, muscular slice of driving beats, growling synths and chanted, percussive vocals. Another standout is the new song “You Do Scribble,” a trippy, frantic slice of breakbeats and ringing, resonant synthesizer tones. The other nine tracks are all excellent as well.

For fans and the merely curious alike, this is a must-download. Just as they’ve done on their albums, hit singles and years of live shows, Underworld shows here that they are one of the best bands in the world, regardless of genre.