Barbara Barbara dirty reviews
 

Barbara Barbara:

01. I Exhale : :(
02. If Rah : :(
03. Low Burn : <3 <3
04. Santiago Cuatro : meh
05. Motorhome : <3
06. Ova Nova : <3
07. Nylon Strung : <3

08. 23 Blue : :) :) :)

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01. I Exhale : a beat that sounds like what old rockers use to show they still got it, a teeth-gritting "ohhh god" combination of decisions that i really laughed at, trying to enjoy destroying my favorite band in my head. and then i liked it? it's still not good? but i like it? maybe it's good? oh god this is how i start liking hold music.
02. If Rah : The one that found itself in a soundtrack it doesnt belong to. the one that sold itself to, i dunno, some bank ad. that big room synth is asking to end up somewhere it shouldn't, it's begging for it. i still like it ffs. it's got early 90s corny swagger.
03. Low Burn : <3 <3 the unique underworld blend of calm and vibrant that i've been conditioned to respond to with a whole lot of love since i was 13.
04. Santiago Cuatro : like a perfectly steady hand. it's fine.
05. Motorhome : thbbbbt. spare me these bad beeps.
06. Ova Nova : <3 heavy jumbo beat with all these layers murmurating together wonderfully. that little bell!
07. Nylon Strung : there's a point in an action movie that goes too long, when there's so much calamity, it just emphasizes how you're sitting in a room watching pictures do their best to excite you. it's nothing to get mad about, but it does feel like it's just playing with air. i have hope it'll click.

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I Exhale: Still really enjoy it. Good opener for the album.
If Rah: Perplexes me, I neither really get into it, nor dislike it. Which probably means that eventually there'll be some mood or context in which I listen to it and it'll suddenly click and I'll listen to it obsessively. But not right now.
Low Burn: Enjoy it a lot. Gives me the same sort of happy vibes as Jumbo, but lyrically it doesn't do much for me, certainly no "tiny wires in her ears, sliding through the city" that's for sure.
Santiago Cuatro: It's fine, but feels a bit like a bridge from A to B. Doesn't really feel like it possesses anything that would make me want to seek it out as an individual listen.
Motorhome: Enjoying it. Totally get the Chemical Brothers vibe mentioned in the other thread.
Ova Nova: Probably my #2 favourite on the album after I Exhale. Can see this getting a lot of repeats.
Nylon Strung: Female vocals were a surprise (not unwelcome, either). I'd like to see what they do with this in a live setting. Pretty okay as it currently stands.

The album feels like it's over far too soon. I'll be interested to see what effect the additional track has on that overall feeling.

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I Exhale - :( :(
If Rah - :)
Low Burn - :) :)
Santiago Quatro - :|
Motorhome - :) :)
Ova Nova - :) :)
Nylon Strung - :)

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I Exhale - Love the way it builds, but overall meh... sounds like a throw away track from River run :confused:
If Rah - Again Love the way it builds, but overall meh... sounds like a throw away track from River run :confused:
Low Burn - The album really start here for me :)
Santiago Quatro - :) :)
Motorhome - :)
Ova Nova - :) :) :) :) :) the explanation of this being one of the first tracks they worked on seems appropriate. Totally could have been part of the opening ceremony music for the olympics
Nylon Strung - :)

damn this album is short.

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- I Exhale: Too long, no real progression and no way a worthy first single. But listening to it on headphones you discover more layers to it.
- If Rah: I like this song... :-) It gets in your head and I am mumbling the tones during the day. Also starts with a break beat and progresses into a steady house beat. Like that!
- Low Burn: This is one of my favorites and the most recognizable typical UW track? Great ambient feeling, 'Kittens' kind of percussion. Nice.
- Santiago Cuatro: First part of the song makes me really happy. But then nothing really new happens and that's a bit dissapointing.
- Motorhome: Have to listen to it more. Little bit to soft. I am missing a nasty touch to it at the end (rez / cowgirl kind of progression). Would it be great to hear them make some real noise again?
- Ova Nova: Starts to grow on me. Little bit too poppy and could have been an Air song...
- Nylon Strung: Love this song, but it does not feel Underworld. It could be a radio hit if they release it with a great video. And please no fifty year old guy jumping around in this one.

This brings me to someting else: the presentation live. Underworld's focus live is more like a band nowadays and I think the focus should be more on the music / visuals. The band on stage is not very interesting: (a nerdy Rick and a chubby Darren behind the machines with a less moving Karl next to it). I'm missing tomatos input with mind blowing visuals / special effects.

But hee.. I am in Paradiso at the end of month and I will love it ;-)

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Nylon Strung is my fav. on the album, followed by Santiago Cuatro. After that i'd say Ova Nova and Motorhome, then Low Burn. Really enjoying this album right now. Nice work guys.

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c'mon. really?

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Yes, really. I love ambient music. I love African guitar music from Mali like Boubacar Traore and Ali Farka Toure. The style of Santiago Cuatro reminds me of that. People like what they like. People don't like what they don't like.

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fair enough.

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Im a relative newcomer to the entire Underworld back catalogue, having only really dipped in and out of interest with them since 1995 or so, and never getting as deep as I did/do with some other bands of similar vintage, so for once my musical compass is potentially more that of a newby and isnt as burdened with listening for the "traditional Underworld sound". I have plenty of other groups I do that to and it can really color your perception and turn your ears off. That being said (out of 5)-

1) I Exhale - **** - I think I like the live 6 Festival vocals better than the album but I love the big beats

2) If Rah - *** 1/2 - The live version wasn't doing it for me, but the album version had a subtlety I didn't pick up on initially that made it a better listen. It could yet click even more

3) Low Burn - ***** - This is beautiful. Five stars. Enough said.

4 Santiago Cuatro - **** surprisingly different. Sounds like a specific type of guitar made it into the car one day when Karl was packing up all sorts of stuff on purpose. I like it laid over that undulating pulse.

5) Motorhome - **** - I only just got this a few days ago and while Im not super keen on the repeating of the lyric line, I love whats going on in the background.

6) Ova Nova - *** - Not getting the love for this song. It sounds very commercial to me and somewhat dull, as though there is another band out there already doing this sound

7 Nylon Strung - *** This song went on so long I didn't realize I was still listening to it between the last two stops of my commute. I had to actually check it was the same song and that yes, I was still in fact listening to Underworld. Not real keen on this either for the same reasons as Ova Nova

Album length seems short, but I like the tightness. It does feel comprehensive and complete on the whole. Waiting to get a real good file copy and have a dedicated listen, see what happens. Also, sometimes a great live performance can make a song stand out where it didn't before - lets see what happens in Berlin!

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BB Part Deux in a 3, late 2016

09. :p:p
10. :o:)
11. ;):):p
12. :p:D:o
13. :eek::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::eek::cool::p
14. :rolleyes::rolleyes:;)
15. :p:p:p
16 :cool::confused::o:p
17. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :):):)
18. :eek::eek::confused::(:D:o:p:mad:;):):o:D:(:confus ed::rolleyes::eek::cool:

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I am not sure what all this means... but I LIKE IT!

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I think it presages the collapse of western society.

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I am digging nearly all the sounds on this album (unintentional? Chem Bros. aping aside), but it gets going and then just...stops. If you're not going to embrace the album format, why package these tracks into one?

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I quit listening to the Chems after Dig Your Own Hole but if you could recommend me tracks of theirs that sound like Motorhome, i'd love to hear them.

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a fair chunk of "Further" just going by memory.

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Haven't succumbed to the leak, but from the live tracks, I am very much looking forward to hearing the LP versions.
"Low Burn" and "Nylon Strung" seem to be standouts, quintessentially UW. "if rah" has a nice buildup, and "Ova Nova" has a lot of melodious layers going on.

Roll on 18th March. I'm holding out to as appreciate the older tyme joy of a physical release.

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I've not torrented it. Yet.

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This means they are working on album two for the year.

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I like the album.Minor gripe is i was hoping Ova Nova would be joined to Nylon Strung. Like what was done for BBC6 music set

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I Exhale - good for first 4 minutes, then gets boring
If Rah - great vibe, brilliant backing vocals, I really like it. First very good track, and second best.
Low Burn - best track on album, sounds very 90s. Love it.
Santiago Cuatro - great ambient track. Third best track on album
Motorhome - nice chill, however I don't enjoy the ending - sounds too popish
Ova Nova - reminds me of 'Barking' - don't like it. Second worst track on album
Nylon Strung - too little things happens but I like the melody.

Overall - quite short, but definitely better than 'Barking'. 3 very good tracks, 2 good and 2 so-so - not bad ;-)

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this is promising. i'm just not feeling most of this new album, although it does have a really lush low end feel to it.

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Nylon Strung is one of my favorite Underworld songs ever. I danced over and over to this song with my headphones on in the rain standing on giant rocks this weekend. Wonderful.

Also love Motorhome, Low Burn and Ova Nova. It's a good album. Give it time to grow on you.

And be patient. This is not the UW of old, but they can still bring it.

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First impressions, which I reserve the right to reverse completely in years hence:

I Exhale: The sound of a band trying very deliberately to not sound like itself, and indeed to mock itself. The brilliance of Karl Hyde has been his way of collecting, among other things, the inanities of urban living and synthesize them into something poetic and profound. Here the inane text is simply that, announced with a Fred Schneider-like confidence that feels unsupported by the rest of the piece, and punctuated by "blahblahblahblah", which in another time would have been a tasteless critic's impersonation of Hyde. Now it's literally what he's singing. Alas.

If Rah: More of the confounding same. Sounds a bit like old LCD Soundsystem maybe.

Low Burn: The first recognizably Underworld song on the album, and one that does something interesting with the atonal concept they're been playing with on the first two tracks. Karl's voice is employed beautifully as a background element, but undermines the song when he comes back with yet more "announcing" vocals. Lyrically the words seem to have a relationship with the music this time, but they're superfluous; particularly the "Rhythm" bit. These words just get in the way of what already feels like an unnaturally compressed story of a song. That this song is so much shorter than tracks 1 and 2 is utterly bizarre to me. Low Burn feels like it wants to stretch out and breathe deeply, but this edit feels more like a hyperventilation.

Sanitago Cuatro: One of my favorite pieces of Underworld's quieter, more meditative pieces. I have no idea what its relationship is to the other songs on the record, but it's nice to have it in high quality.

Motorhome: The beginning reminds me of one of the demos showcased back in the radio days. Featuring Karl's first proper singing on the album, it's a really a nice little Underworld tune that segues weirdly into something like a vintage Chemical Brothers b-side. The least memorable song on the record.

Ova Nova: Really sublime, and a good showing from Karl in particularly -- until it just fades out and dies. I honestly thought I was mistakenly listening to an iTunes preview or something. This song is plainly meant to be much longer, and it's honestly maddening; like a television series that never airs its final episode. The 6 Music performance is much more satisfying in that way, because the song is allowed to end and progress very naturally into the closer.

Nylon Strung: The tradition of strong Underworld album closers continues here (Louisiana notwithstanding). My only criticisms of this are very nit-picky (i don't like songs that open with a really big, loud isolated vocal). Well done, more of this please.

It's very difficult to listen to this album and not think of what the band has said in the media about rebelling against their own perceptions of themselves and the way they work. This band has always been disdainful of what it's termed "looking back" or "standing still", and as someone who works in commercial entertainment it's an instinct I completely understand. In that fashion, this record is critic-proof, because the stated mission seems to have been to be less perfectionist, less brooding, less Underworld. So if I or someone else thinks it sounds unfinished, unfamiliar and even unfulfilling, then the project can be said to have succeeded in its goal.

That instinct seemed to be part of the thinking around Barking as well, where they gave the raw material of their work to other artists but were surprised to discover how faithfully Underworld-ish the music was when it came back. This album feels like Barking wasn't un-Underworld ENOUGH, so they've taken it upon themselves to go further afield. If there are spiritual and tangible rewards to be had as a result of trying very hard to not be themselves, then I'm pleased for the guys. But it's definitely a roll of the dice as far as the end listener is concerned.

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I took a break for a week, after reading interview and stuff, listening to solo work and a lot of old freur for some reason... I love freur a lot, I had to dig hard to find alabaster again. The first time I let a girl paint my toe. Lush 1-2-3. oh still like it :)

ps. 23b is awesome. maybe i'll preview bits when I twitch isaac later on.

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This is purely the case for their creative process making new music / albums.

Live is a different story: it's nice to hear the new songs, but the rest of the songs are a selection of their well know single releases (6 Music gig). I hope to hear them play lesser known tracks in Paradiso Amsterdam at the end of the month...

If not: I will enjoy them anyway ;-)

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After a week+ of having the album now its gone as I expected. I almost always skip I Exhale; my album starts with If Rah. Surprisingly, I don't skip Santiago... I actually kinda like it mixed right in with the album.

Can't wait to add 23b into the mix.

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That's a bit of a tease! Come on, how do we hear what you've heard? (also what does it mean to "twitch Isaac"? :o)

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I'd ignore Yannick. He's a cunt who likes telling lies to people.

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A solid review from Pitchfork...

Love this quote: "The effect is stunning, the kind of music that makes you sob happysad tears in your car in the Sunday afternoon sunlight as you think about the people you wish were riding with you."

There are some stunners in this bunch...

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Pitchfork review confirms that R&K daughters provided vocals. Poor Juanita is out of a job!

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Knowing that it's R&K's respective daughters providing vocals really takes Nylon Strung to another more emotional level for me. Really, really loving that track at the moment and I think it's such a great end to the album.

(and now I'm fearing that the Japan-exclusive track will kind of ruin that feeling if it appears at the end, like how Loads of Birds is nowhere near as effective of a closer as Best Mamgu Ever..)

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I'm putting 23blue first, and not as a closer. :)

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I think it might work after Santiago Cuatro.

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hehe agree. now after hearing it that sounds about right.

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Twenty Three Blue reminds me of Massive Attack. I love the heavy bass line. Overall it's pretty solid. It definitely needs to be placed somewhere in the middle. Nylon Strung is must to close the LP.

Even with the Bonus Japan track the LP still runs just under 52 minutes. The regular release of Barking was just over 53 minutes. Hopefully we'll be getting some more singles with some B-tracks... :cool:

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and lo, the salt flows heavy still

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Bought the Japan itunes digital release today; Twenty Three Blue is indeed pretty great!! I agree that it'd work well just after Santiago Cuatro..

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Basic principle. Don't worry, I have no restless nights ;)