[.ca] Second Toughest In The Infants

Hear Underworld FLOW in this album ^^:
After hearing "Juanita/Kiteless" on "Everything, Everything; LIVE", I have always wanted to get this album to hear what the version of the song sounds like. I thought the version of Juanita on this album was a more 'ambient, mystic, and simple' version. The vocals sound a lot more different in it and it's 15 minutes long (wow!). Aside from that, "Banstyle/Sappys Curry" became my next favorite song for it's pretty melodies in the background mixed in with the drum-beats and well-put together vocals. I think of this one as a clone to Dubnobasswithmyheadman cause they are still keeping it in the same 'style' as they did in Dubnobass...even "Pearls Girl" I appreciated a lot for being a more 'easier' version from Everything, Everything; LIVE. I've written lots of reviews today and it's tiring me and so this is the best way I'll tell you about "Second Toughest in the Infants". I hope my review has helped.

and blue and blue and blue:
Underworld's first album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, is sparse, angular, and as song-oriented as any rock album; the band's frontman Karl Hyde is at the forefront in every song, and the music is packed with brilliant rhythms, memorable as the most famous guitar riffs, that are so simple and so great that Underworld themselves haven't managed to top them yet. Second Toughest in the Infants, the band's second and most ambitious album, is not as immediate or as good, overall. However, it does have its fair share of great moments. Heavy emphasis is placed on the production here - how things sound, with Underworld, is often more important than what they actually say. Thus, a technically incompetent two-note guitar line becomes something commanding and beautiful after the Underworld treatment. Various textures are there to fill out the silence; drums splash, echo or thump cleanly; and of course, Hyde's voice gets put through vocoder after vocoder to provide the right sound for the situation. Lyrically, the album is less inspired than its predecessor; Hyde's lyrics never make literal sense, which is great when they are written to portray some one unifying theme, and terrible when they're just random. Here, they tend towards the latter more often than before. The centrepiece of the album lies in the first two tracks, which run for about half the album's duration. The other tracks are less detailed and less important; it is as if they are just afterthoughts. The first two, however, are highly detailed and divided into multiple parts. "Juanita," the first part of the first track, is perfection itself. It takes four minutes to completely unfold, but once it does and the guitar sounds, one is suddenly driving full speed down a deserted highway, the setting sun gleaming off the treetops on the side. It's a beautiful moment, and I still can't get over how it just _stops_ at the six-minute mark and goes into some utterly pointless drum'n'bass thing. If only Underworld had developed the theme of "Juanita" for the entire sixteen minutes, I daresay we'd have had the best song of the last fifteen years on our hands. Alas. It even has what may be Hyde's most memorable image: "Cats are gathering outside your window / homeless strays / bootleg babies / talk to you at night among the mosquitoes / that summer's fever's coming." If "Juanita" offers only a glimpse of heaven, "Banstyle/Sappys Curry" is great through its entirety. Hyde sings his inane lyrics with a vulnerable sort of resignation, backed by a very fast but quiet beat and the harsh but quiet jangle of his own guitar. But then, six minutes in, the second part emerges - beautifully forlorn acoustic guitars and odd images, sung of in a barely-there whisper. Then, when Hyde gets to "white jeans / black top / naked beneath the knee," one is in a dark, lonely room in some suburban locale, staring at the blue sky obscured by windblown leaves that's just outside one's window. Eventually the volume mounts and the image becomes a chaotic blur by the time the fadeout comes around. After that, the rest of the album is mostly a comedown. "Confusion the Waitress" is too sparse to really be good, but the lyric does kind of grow on one after a while. "Rowla," however, is absolute filler, the kind of song where one has heard about all it has to offer after the first five seconds. Not the best choice for the album's first single. "Pearls Girl" (no apostrophe, dudes) is a more complicated issue, though; the introduction and the way the drums first come in are great, and the black crackle of the bass is very menacing, but the song doesn't really get anywhere from there. Hyde's lyric is too abstract to grab us the way "Juanita" did, the distortion makes his voice a bit too harsh (though still cleaner than, say, Underworld's famous single "Born Slippy"), and the song just doesn't do much else musically. A few extra sounds come in after five minutes or so, but it's mostly just breakbeat and bassline for ten minutes. Not really the stuff of legend. "Air Towel" is better. Musically, it's still very simple, but Hyde's vocals add depth to it. His lyric is again half-nonsensical (it also uses many of the same images as "Banstyle/Sappys Curry"), but the way the song is, it's almost impossible to decipher the words, but very possible to hear the _way_ they are sung, and here that's the important part. Then comes "Blueski," a very short instrumental interlude played on some fuzzed-up blue guitars. Again, nothing too astonishing, but pretty enough to make me wish Underworld would do more with guitars sometime. "Stagger" is interesting. The instrumentation can't be easily classified, and the song has nothing, really, to do with dance music. It's a song that should have been an instrumental, perhaps - Hyde's vocals are too obtrusive and a little too dissonant, and though the lyric isn't a total failure, the fact that Hyde's voice is so prominent in the song makes lines like "This is a random feature, random feature, this is a random feature" and "Cut me, I bleed, like you, ha ha" a little, let's say, distracting. Great music, though. Of all of Underworld's albums, this is the only one to evoke no images of the city. Most of the tracks are too quiet for that; if anything, they call to mind melancholy landscapes and scenes from nature where people appear infrequently when they appear at all. The point is, this album is off in a completely different direction from other Underworld albums. If it doesn't always succeed brilliantly, at least it's always interesting, which is more than can be said for just about any other artist in Underworld's genre.

Without doubt an often overlooked Underworld classic.....:
Possibly the closest thing Underworld have produced to an "Ambient/Chill out" album, with the majority of tracks have a longer running time than most of their subsequent songs on later albums..(possibly in a effort to build mood & momentum), and its still has the trademark detached spoken word from all their albums, but here...its less consistent through the album, instead preferring delicate electronic's & seamless flow, to be the order of the day with less of the pulsating Techno of something like "Moaner". There's an almost Dubby-Electro feel to this album with first track "Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream of Love", circling on the fringes of traditional Dance, but never quite committing itself, with a sublime flow, that (until now) has eluded Underworld. Understandably some listeners will find that this album requires more investment to get the desired effect, partly due to the length of some tracks (17 minutes??), and because of the layering evident in the tracks, to make 'A Quick Lesson' difficult to attain at best. Undoubtedly this is a bonus for Underworld fans, with a continuing excellence maintained throughout their albums, and refreshing to hear Underworld showing a diversity in music, and admirably turning their hands to something (slightly) different, and therefore as essential as any of their other albums

The Greatest Album, By The Greatest Band:
If you are a fan of Underworld, you most likely are a huge fan of Underworld. They are distinctly unique in the way they release and play their music. Often compared only to themselves, Underworld creates it's masterpiece with Second Toughest in the Infants. Starting with Song #1 - you start a journey into the sound of Underworld. This song alone captures the essentials of a great underworld song -- Great Dance Music, Epic like length, and great vocals. The most underated part of Underworlds music is their ability to stay true to their music even when they are singing. This band is bar none, the best electronica band in the world. This album, is bar none, their greatest masterpiece and will be next to impossible to top.

I can't explain it but I absolutely love this album!:
The more I listen to it the more I like it. Definitely need a good system with good bass response 'cause this has some deep bass that I missed on previous audio systems. It's awesome. 'Born Slippy' (from Trainspotting) brought Underworld much larger audience and this album is what came next. The album flows as a composite whole. It's a little trip from finish to end. I mean, how many albums, including much that is so-called 'techno' (which are often nothing more than commercial sound bytes) have thirteen minute tracks anymore? The more you listen, the more you'll like. When I'm not sure what to listen to, this one never fails.

• Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream of Love
• Banstyle/Sappys Curry
• Confusion the Waitress
• Rowla
• Pearls Girl
• Air Towel
• Blueski
• Stagger