About

Strawberry Hotel is Underworld's first studio album since the 2019 release of Drift Series 1, an expansive box set compiling several "episodes" (with practically an album's worth of material each), collaborations with Australian avant-jazz group The Necks, and a lengthy Blu-ray of accompanying films, all recorded and released piece by piece in the space of a year. This extremely abundant, spontaneous outpouring of material tended towards improvisation and extended moments of dancefloor euphoria. Though Underworld's recordings always feel like the results of endless jam sessions, with all of Karl Hyde's vocals coming across as stream-of-consciousness ramblings and poetry, they generally manage to whittle the most effective moments down to their essence on their albums and singles, and their most successful tracks are the ones that come closest to the band's equivalent of pop songs. 

Strawberry Hotel returns to the ebb-and-flow sequencing of their proper albums, balancing introspective tone poems with progressive club-stormers. The pounding, train-like beats and references to tube hole stations on "denver luna" draw a clear line back to previous Underworld triumphs like "Dark & Long" and "Born Slippy (NUXX)." The surging instrumental "Techno Shinkansen" is three minutes of pure light, getting by with just uplifting chords and steady kick drums. Likewise, "and the colour red" may be nothing more than brittle beats, flickering sequencers, and looped, distorted vocal phrases, but that's all it needs in order to establish a deeply zoned-in late-night mood. Hyde is in a surprisingly playful mode on a few tracks, particularly "Sweet Lands Experience" ("I was more smashed than you were!") and the goofy "King of Haarlem," filled with nonsensical, silly-putty vocal turns that are later reprised on the brief "Oh Thorn!" "Lewis in Pomona" is filled with exaggerated wailing, along with the repeated assurance "and it feels good," eventually accompanied by the ecstatic release of stomping beats. "Burst of Laughter" actually isn't one of the album's lighthearted moments, as it begins by asking, "Do you ever feel like you're alone?," but ultimately its lyrics offer a message of consolation, and the skipping rhythm helps the song feel spirited and empowering, even if it isn't outright joyous. Opera singer Esme Bronwen-Smith, bandmember Rick Smith's daughter, delivers a spoken monologue related to Roman history on "Ottavia," and Nina Nastasia guests on the haunting downtempo number "Iron Bones." The delicate acoustic closer "Stick Man Test" makes the entire journey end up feeling more like a soundtrack than a standard album. — via AllMusic 

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Label: Smith Hyde Productions
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, 180g
Released: 2024
Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno, House, Ambient

File under: House / Electro / Techno
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