got the CD today, as did Hawke
Listening now.... the first listen is always weird, but here we go.
Track 1 : Bird 1
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Older style Underworld. Reminds me of something off Second Toughest with hints of Dubnobass. Slow and calm - usual brain dump lyrics. Feels like it's about to take off but never does... good start.
Track 2 : Always Loved A Film
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Colab with Knight and Ramirez and is awesome. Extremely uplifting track. Absolutely fantastic.
Track 3 : Scribble
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Didn't check the track list - didn't expect Always and Scribble (the two singles) to be at the start of the album. Haven't been to keen on this track, sounds much more of a live track. It's not bad but suffers a bit from coming off the back of Always...
Track 4 : Hamburg Hotel
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Semi random downbeat instrumental. Feels like a bit of a filler
Track 5 : Grace
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another downbeat track, not bad. Like a less immediate Bird 1.
Track 6 : Between Stars
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Already heard this on a live show online and it sounded terrible. But it's actually pretty great on the album. Moody but with strong beat. Not sure about the "full moon" lyrics. Strong ending! Noisy.
Diamond Jigsaw
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Wow - sounds like something out of Change the Weather/Beneath the Radar! Cheese - and not the good cheese. Then it hits another gear around 2m 30 and it sounds pretty good. But the lyrics are a bit lacking to put it mild. Probably good live but yeah. This is the side of Underworld i thought died with v1.0
Moon in the Water
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eek - strange monologue at the start. Fairly average track - picks up a bit at the end. Reminds me a little bit of 8-Ball for some reason
Lousiana
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Piano riddled , vocal track. Nice ending to the album.
As Hawke put it : This album is all over the place. Can't figure out how i feel. They've added a few tracks that are probably going to rule live, but doesn't feel up to the standard of last album Oblivion with Bells. We shall see. It does seem that the best Underworld stuff of late has been the tracks with Knight and Ramirez with Always Loved A Film been the best track on the album and their other non-album colab "Downpipe" being an absolute monster track.
Time to go through it all again. *hits repeat*
