Re: Barking -- Some general thoughts
 

tbh I've actually found AHDO to be better than BF over time, though when AHDO first dropped I didn't think it had anything worthwhile on it. But yea, everyone's got an opinion it seems, which IMO is the majesty of UW's portfolio of works -- every last one of their albums has meant the world to someone somewhere, which is really cool.

Re: Barking: The Reviews
 

Im sorry but I hate this album. It doesn't sound like Underworld at all. What happened to their sound? Even Oblivion had the Underworld I know and love with Crocodile and Beautiful Burnout. The whole album sounds like one of tiesto's generic trance sets. I really hope Underworld doesn't go the way of BT and so many other electronic producers, catering to the popularity of trance, and lose themselves along the way.

Underworld is my favorite band and I will always love them live, but this album makes me sick. They really shouldn't collaborate with anyone ever again. They should be the leaders in electronic music, the band that sets the bar, not following the sounds of Dubfire and Paul Van Dyk. Those guys are mainstream hacks. Underworld has dabbled in Drum n Bass before, and the results of those efforts have always been better than Scribble (Pearl's Girl, Something Like a Mama, etc).

I must say I am concerned with the direction Underworld has taken with this album. I know there are others on this board who love Underworlds understated style and interwoven melodies, complex structure, and rambling vocals. None of these are present on this album. All I hear are pop trance tunes destined for another In Search of Sunrise mix. The album is cheesy and lacks heart and I hate it.

Re: Barking: The Reviews
 

(post only relevant when it was in the wrong thread)

why i think why a lot of y'all don't like the new record and a lot do
 

OK, i just listened to it (finally), because unlike the rest of y'all i don't have limitless resources and whatnot to get an advanced copy from japan that includes a free can of wasabi.

my first thoughts are that i agree, the songs do not fit together as an album at all, so that is something different for UW, something i don't necessarily like. my second thought was that this album despite that fact beats the living crap out of oblivion with bells and is probably going to tie with AHDO for me.

favourite tracks:

• bird 1
• hamburg hotel
• between stars

^i have no complaints for these. these are perfect.

good tracks:

• scribble (the album version is really a lot better than the single version. gives a lot more time for it to build up like the original did.
• diamond jigsaw (WHY IS THE GUITAR SOLO BURIED?? PAUL VAN DYKE I AM GOING TO OWN YOUR ASS!!!)
• louisiana (although i feel like it could've been so much more... to me it compares to this song by the stone temple pilots (listen please):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8iFc...layer_embedded
  
  those of you who don't like louisiana, i feel like this is representative of the emotion UW was trying to go for, but ultimately didn't pull it off, imo. i don't think extra producers would have helped, though, as this really had to be something they had to do on their own. regardless it's a decent track.

tracks that i don't really care for, for one reason or another:

• always loved a film. i'm not going to say that they should've used this version over that version or whatnot cos i really didn't have much interest in this song in the first place. but the "heeey-vunn, heeey-vunn" refrain really annoys me. but the guitar breakdown is nice and the music is fairly good. it's just that refrain! argh!
• grace. and not because of the music at all. it has a nice radiohead style vibe, and it's very dark. but i do not like the vocals, once again... they are a little irritating to me and i feel like the music could've used the extra attention that went into the vocals. this would've been better as an instrumental if it had been worked on a bit more.
• moon in water. i don't really care for this one much, it just bores me, it is too similar to 'to heal' and 'cuddle bunny' on the last record.

what i think UW wanted when they were involving these producers were to complete these tracks that they felt were not whole at the time they handed them over, and in some cases such as the last three i feel like the producers didn't really complete the sound of the songs, but instead just tweaked them and put their signature on it, sort of like a remix or edit. i think the idea of bringing producers in to get new ideas is a good idea, but i think i would've made different choices- such as not involving producers whose main avenue of music is remixing tracks... in some cases i feel like these guys didn't really know what to do with the tracks— i would've involved people who are specifically producers such as brian eno, nigel godrich, david hentschel, and that new bloke who produced the new linkin park album. it's not because these are more traditional 'rock' producers, but because they have a way of working with the band and bouncing ideas off of each other to create something greater than either could accomplish apart from each other and add it back together.

which brings me to another thing i would've done differently: i don't think i would've just handed a bunch of different producers the tapes and said 'give it a go'. i think i would've picked one or two who could actually come into the studio for long periods of times where they could bounce ideas off of each other, rather than "hey we did the first 3/4 of this song, you do the last quarter". the choice to use many different producers really led the album to have a very disconnected feel to it, sort of like a collection of singles, which is why i think they needed to have only one or two producers come in.

not that they made bad choices on all of these songs. for example, high contrast did what i outlined above, he worked with them to create a whole new song by bouncing ideas back and forth and UW took the ideas they liked and scrapped the ones they didn't, and offered more ideas (new lyrics) back to high contrast, etc. etc. the result, whether you enjoy the track or not, was a very strong track. in contrast, songs like grace and moon in water remained mostly the same besides a whooshy sound or a keyboard sound here or there.

so i guess, my point overall is that the reason there is divide over this record is because many of y'all want a 'big picture' type album where there is a general connection between the band and yourself through the music, and the diversity threw some of you off. others like big tracks and look in the record for the best tracks and rate the album like that.

honestly, i do both. and i can say in as many ways as i can think, this is a damned good collection of songs, the best they've done in at least 12 years. but it doesn't quite have the cohesive feel of an album.

Re: why i think why a lot of y'all don't like the new record and a lot do
 

I originally liked only six of the nine tracks. The three I wasn't really impressed with are Between Stars, Grace, and Scribble. Well, Between Stars grew on me some more, but as some have said, it is over produced, and Karl seems like he is struggling to be heard on that song. Grace grew on me some more, too, but Between Stars and Grace are still in my bottom three. Scribble is the track I'd rank last. Not too bad, but I wish this album had You Do Scribble as track three and Scribble was like an iTunes bonus track or something.

If YDS was track 3 instead, I'd like the album a bit more, and it wouldn't hurt if Bird 1 didn't have the synth plops. Bird 1 is definitely in my top 3, but it would have probably been my surefire number one pick of the album without the synth plops. It is akin to how the "Heaven, Heaven" refrain in ALAF bugs you OP.

I guess the reason why I'm not very impressed with this album is that some tracks don't impress me much at all. I'm fine with the collaborations, as five out of eight of them I like. The three songs that rank as the last three for me, I just don't happen to like them that much, not really because of the collaboration on them, but just how they sound doesn't do too much for me. Next to them is Hamburg Hotel, which I like, but not as much as the first two tracks and the last three tracks.

So that is five tracks I like, one track I think is alright, two tracks I think are so-so, and one that I can tolerate but don't really care for. It ends up being my least favorite UW album (at least, at the moment it is) out of the six released so far, as I usually like or really like most songs (or all the songs) on the other five albums.

I'd say I'd rate this album as three stars out of five, which is by no means bad. Three stars out of five for an album is, to me, a solid and decent album.

Re: why i think why a lot of y'all don't like the new record and a lot do
 

what are the synth plops everyone keeps referring to?

i would agree that some tracks just don't have that underworld "you know it's them" shine to it... i think that's why they sought producers to make those songs better.

however, i disagree about between stars. i think it's really cool because it sounds like his life is going nuts and he's SCREAMING AND NO ONE CAN HEAR HIM!!! it's totally beautiful to me. i don't know why so many people think that between stars is total pop or whatever. to me it has the same sentiment as dirty epic.

btw, it is their eighth album =p

Re: why i think why a lot of y'all don't like the new record and a lot do
 

On Bird 1, where normally there would be a snaredrum or handclap, someone thought it would be a good idea to insert a synth-plop(tm) instead. He was wrong.

Re: Barking: The Reviews
 

the band need to move on.
it may not be in a direction that everyone like's but they will never be the 90's underworld, the version many people still want them to be,again.
they're musicians and have changed their style and out put many times over the years and i'm sure they will do it again.
i'm interested 'cause i like to watch the "journey" they're on and i really enjoy it when they change course either in a commercial way (like this album) or delve deep (like river runs).
maybe for every fan they gain with the new stuff they'll lose one as well but thats the way it is if you don't sit still.

Re: Barking -- Some general thoughts
 

the synth plop bugs the shit out of me. its so a bizarre sound. its grating almost. still a fantastic track tho.

Re: Barking -- Some general thoughts
 

Bird 1 really is still good despite the synth plops. I'm getting used to them.

I do like the album, but OWB (an album several people say they hate) is definitely superior to me. Barkings competition for me is AHDO. Maybe Barking can surpass AHDO for me one day, who knows. I like both of those albums but both are fifth and sixth in rank for me. Like I said, I'm currently feeling Barking as a 3/5 star album (and I feel it will still grow on me some more), and I'd say AHDO is a 3 1/2 star (out of 5) album for me. At one time, I was feeling that AHDO was a 2 1/2 star album to me, so Barking really can grow more on me.

Anyway, ratings aren't really all that important to me, and I don't care to rate albums most times and don't put too much importance on them when I do. I've been giving Barking many listens of late and even if I think it isn't too strong of an album, I do generally enjoy listening to it when I do. Some tracks aren't all that impressive to me, but I am quite happy with Bird 1, ALAF, DJ, Moon In Water, and Louisiana.