Thoughts on Barking (Track by Track)

[Cadevil]

Simply put, the boys obviously wanted to make a pop record and succeeded just fine. There are 5 maybe 6 potential singles here ready for the dance floor--something that their last two LPs did not deliver.

Barking and Oblivion with Bells are really two sides of the same coin. OWB is the introverted twin to the outward dancefloor celebration of Barking. Both albums release multiple songs with extremely long gestation periods...

The collaborations aren't as much of an issue as they potentially could have been. I don't think any of the guests hijacks the Underworld sound. I think Karl had previously said that OWB was the album that Rick always wanted to make...and someone else said that this album seems to be "more Karl". In the past, others have speculated the Beucoup Fish was "more Emerson". I always find it interesting to hear what people think about who influenced the album more...but I digress.

Bird 1 -- Easily the best song on the album. Nice build to the main break, which when released makes the hair on my arm stand up. Similar build as Cups, but ultimately suffers from being too short in length...really the case with many of the tracks on Barking...hence the pop tilt.

ALAF -- Faithful treatment of what has been in development for some time. Much of the angst of the original is gone, but Karl really seems to let us in here with the vocals. Something he has never done on an Underworld track.

Scribble -- Ultimately a successful "version" of a live performance that was probably never intended to be a studio track. This is a can't win situation for Rick and Karl. YDS had become such a live banging staple, but I could never see how the would convert it to an album track. Scribble is a nice reinvention, that fails to capture the energy of the original live song...something that is probably impossible.

Hamburg Hotel -- As with almost all of the non-dancefloor tracks, it suffers from the pop tilt of the record. Starts to get really interesting as it fades away. Waaayyy too short.

Grace -- Ditto on the shortness. Someone else said it's akin to Holding the Moth, and I agree...also like Sola Sistim

Between Stars -- Underworld does Exciter-era Depeche Mode. Yet probably feels the most like an Underworld track that could have been on one of their other albums. Really bangs it home.

Diamond Jigsaw -- Someone said Boy, Boy, Boy felt like a cheap attempt at a rock single on OWB, but I much preferred that to DJ. They could be next to each other on an Underworld rock disc. Really didn't like DJ at first, but it's sooo catchy...Of all the tracks, I find myself singing it throughout the day. Crazy.

Moon In Water -- A less complicated and more accessible Little Speaker. Again I think it's too short to really go anywhere, which is shame because a couple of these shorter ambient tracks could have been super-layered classics like Stagger or Tongue.

Louisiana -- After reading how they wrote this song, how could you not love it? But, I think it could have benefited from some more sonic textures a la Stagger. It just feels a bit flat for me...or maybe it's just the starkness as compared to what it is surrounded by.

Biggest differences on this album are the lyrical delivery/accessibility and the short ambient pieces that don't go far enough. The bigger songs are VERY big though.

For me UW albums rank: STITI, Dubno, OWB, Barking, BF, AHDO...depends on the day, sometimes BF would rank ahead of Barking.