Beaucoup Fish

While Second Toughest in the Infants showed Underworld were no mere novices at introducing super-tough breakbeats, here the focus is on throwback acid-house and trance. The effect is that Underworld have refused to compromise their artistic vision to anyone's view of commercialism; as such, the few excesses on Beaucoup Fish can be forgiven.

The absence of quirky samples and lame big beats make it all sound, right now, strangely radical.

There's no anthem like "Born Slippy" here, but there are plenty of excellent moments, as exuberant techno, hypnotic house and slices of poppy disco edge out the indie feel of previous records. Engrossing throughout its 74 minutes, this is a big hitter.

Beaucoup Fish takes a different direction, abandoning the cohesive feel of earlier work for a smorgasbord of ideas. It's an album that draws more attention to itself, sprawling like a Playboy bunny on a bear rug.

Out of such dodges, an aesthetic, or at least a career, coagulates. But contrary to what you might have heard, Underworld's mission — still unfulfilled — isn't to make electronica palatable to the rock masses. Underworld's mission — still unfulfilled — is to make Underworld palatable to the rock masses.

With Beaucoup Fish, Karl Hyde, Rick Smith and Darren Emerson do what they probably would have done had none of the ups and downs ever happened -- create darkly physical grooves that seduce psyche, body and soul without resorting to instant hooks or easily understood concepts.

Finally, after settling on the ridiculous title Beaucoup Fish, Underworld have finally answered. And it shouldn't surprise anyone in today's age of shattered expectations that Beaucoup Fish is not as great as we'd hoped.

Beaucoup Fish finds them continuing down an individualistic path as they pull in stands from electronic influences such as Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Yello.

Plodding and repetitive, with frightfully moronic Rod McKuenesque spoken-word bits dropped on top, Beaucoup Fish is about what you might expect from former members of Freur who take pride in having just discovered Detroit techno. Bring on the Sven Väth remixes.