This was Underworld’s first album with DJ Darren Emmerson on board and his influence can heard in the mostly house and techno that make up dubnobasswithmyheadman. They chose to address the how-do-you-make-club-music-work-in-the-album-format question by embracing the relentless looping nature of techno while ensuring that their tracks mutated, developed and unfurled in all sorts of interesting ways. Their tripped-out synths, billowing chord pads, thudding kick drums and layers of regimented percussion are all arranged to build, peak, plateau and progress the music, while Karl Hyde’s steam of conscious lyrics provide a surreal and engaging human element. Three of the nine tracks step outside the 4/4 techno thud: the drifty, twangy-guitar downtempo Tongue, moody weirdtronica River of Bass and sprightly trip hop-ish M.E., providing slowed down, alternate versions of Underworld’s singular musical vision.

– Harold Heath

They weren’t quite as sonically futurist as the techno of the time — a certain chug to the rhythm and dedication to putting as many layers as possible on everything gave away their history as a rock band. But with the addition of Karl Hyde’s stream of consciousness, cut up, impressionist lyrics of flight, height, cityscapes and speed it became a huge sci-fi movie depiction of the information society exploding: kind of Koyaanisqatsi meets William Gibson in the middle of the rave. Even the dreamy comedown ending of “River of Bass” and “M.E.” doesn’t let up on that momentum, just lets it flow wider and deeper for a bit. And if there’s ever a case of the Super Deluxe box set being justified it’s this. Adding live jams, sketches, remixes, single-only tunes and tracks by their previous iteration Lemon Interupt to Underworld’s 1994 debut album all serves to illustrate the torrent of invention that the band was channeling through the first few years of the 90s.

– Joe Muggs