Underworld - Crocodile

Underworld's activity has been by no means just virtual, however. In 2006, they worked with feted film score composer, producer and orchestral arranger Gabriel Yared on the soundtrack to the Anthony Minghella movie, 'Breaking And Entering' at Abbey Road Studios and this year contributed to old mate Danny Boyle's latest, 'Sunshine'. It's this work that feeds into the pair's brand new work, their long-awaited, fifth studio album, 'Oblivion With Bells'. A soulful and contemplative, yet typically uplifting record, it's built on a more intimate scale than previous Underworld efforts and features sculptural orchestration, some ambient soundscaping and - encouraged by their work with Yared - increased live instrumental input (including marimba player Larry Mullen Jr of U2 on 'Boy, Boy, Boy'). Built from a vast palette of pieces they’ve been amassing since 2003, it reflects the stylistic promiscuity that always marked Underworld out from the pack, recalling Kraftwerk, Erik Satie, Can, Angelo Badalamenti, Laurie Anderson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Last Poets, Eno, Phillip Glass and musique concrete composers such as Pierre Boulez. It's definitely Underworld, but it's Underworld with a twist.

They are in empowered form from the outset. The forthcoming single and album opener 'Crocodile' is Underworld, simply as good as they get. 'Ring Road' sees Hyde off on one of his famous psycho-geographic jaunts (this one around Romford, on St George's Day), marking time with his compelling word rhythms, while the treated found sounds in 'Cuddle Bunny Vs Celtic Villages' conjure a decidedly non-cuddly, almost menacing atmosphere. The lusciously lowering 'Beautiful Burnout' features Underworld's trademark synth swathes and swells with a somehow doomed beauty, but the minimal 'Holding The Moth' boasts such a bass-y spring it practically bounces clean off the plastic. 'Glam Bucket', meanwhile, shimmers like a sheet of liquid crystal and 'Best Mamgu Ever' offers a sliver of downbeat, Balearic bliss at the album's close.

'This renewed vigour we've felt in the past four or five years has surfaced in material that hasn't really appeared over the commercial parapet,' Smith explains, 'but what we're most interested in doing - beyond just 'Oblivion With Bells' - is simply marking our ongoing journey. Big conclusions aren't what we're aiming for; we're interested in expressing how we feel at one particular time and that in no way necessarily says that's where we're going. It just says that's where we're at, at the moment. I do think large aspects of the new album sound like two guys who've had great experiences with film music, who have a passion for film and travelling and for ambient, more gentle and perhaps what was less generally understood as 'an Underworld sound' - which was uplifting, anthemic, banging and very obviously dance oriented.'

Adds Hyde: 'One of the questions we often get asked is, 'What's your inspiration?' and largely, it's boredom! What we decide to do about that becomes the next part of the journey. Process and journey is probably the major part of what we do. We did a lot of travelling in the early days; we'd borrow a car to come up to London to record and so we'd listen to the radio at night, on the road. When we were on the dole, we'd rent a couple of films and sit in, eating brown rice and tuna, watching movies until the early hours. That filmic aspect and travel is inherent in all our music.'

Oblivion With Bells' is conclusive proof that Underworld were never in any danger of being forgotten. That sound you hear is Karl Hyde and Rick Smith ringing in the new. Again.

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