Underworld - Strawberry Hotel Review
Overall, Strawberry Hotel reaches for some of Underworld’s peak moments, but falters midway through.
Two of electronic music's great survivors, Underworld have somehow stayed relevant into their fourth decade as a musical act. They’ve done this by consistently collaborating and being open to new creative processes, as on their recent Drift project, where they challenged themselves to release a track a week for a whole year. Set that aside the weight of expectation with this being their first studio album in eight years and you wonder how Rick Smith and Karl Hyde will play it.
As it turns out, Strawberry Hotel has some stretches that are as good as anything Underworld have ever done; and more than a few moments that feel like bizarre choices for an album.
Naming the opening salvo ‘Black Poppies’ suggests it could be a lament for the seemingly endless horror of war that fills our social media feeds day after day. But the lyrics read more like a hymn for healing, and indeed the multi-layered acapella vocals give it a religiosity, with the repeated mantra, ‘You are beautiful’. Maybe reassurance with words is all most of us can do when faced with such human tragedy.
After a reflective opening, the album kicks off properly with Denver Luna which is archetypal Underworld - a thumping high BPM beat with Karl Hyde vocalising like a shamanic hype-man, the lyrics so nonsensical they almost make sense. The throb of the kick drum is a joyous release of tension, which to be honest will feel more healing to many than the choral Black Poppies, it being as welcome and familiar as an old friend.
From here, the duo don't put a foot wrong for 30 minutes; playing to their strengths and sounding at the top of their game. Techno Shinkansen is exactly as it sounds, (Shinkansen being a high-speed train) with resplendent trancey chords that also seem designed to heal and unify, as well as moving you physically. On And the Colour Red, Hyde’s roboticised vocal is used more like a sample and shows they can still pump out the kind of muscular techno of their mid-90s heyday.
The tempo comes down a notch on Lewis in Pomona, the kind of track only Underworld can pull off, a woozy techno ballad for late-night (or early morning) soul searching; Hyde’s command to “Follow the line, to the rising sun” backed by epic backing vocals and beautifully sonorous synth chords, before the beat and bass return with a vengeance for a banging crescendo.
The oddest thing about Strawberry Hotel - aside from the inclusion of a spoken-word lament for the wife of Emperor Nero - is how the album is paced. The first half is largely classic Underworld: high tempo beats, stadium-sized production and Karl Hyde’s vocals alternately energising, healing, or just documenting the absurdity of life like an endless social media feed (in the style he’s done since before social media feeds existed). But the joyful and galvanising energy built up on disc one suddenly fizzles out with Burst of Laughter, a three-minute cut that tries to strike the same healing note as Black Poppies but feels like a bit of an anticlimactic interruption.
Disc two opens with King of Haarlem, a track that doesn’t really go anywhere and Hyde’s nonsense vocals just sound irritating. Next-up is the aforementioned Ottavia, the inclusion of which I’d charitably call ‘brave’. It features opera singer Esme Bronwen-Smith (daughter of Rick Smith) but the piece never unleashes the dramatic tension promised by the build-up; and the inscrutable lyrical content bears no relation to the rest of the album. Given her fantastic contribution to Lewis in Pomona, her talents seemed wasted on this track.
The acapella version of Denver Luna also feels unnecessary and there’s a risk many listeners will have got tired of using the skip button before reaching Gene Pool, which just about saves the second half of the album. With the sorrowful line, “Cut a hole in the news”, standing in stark contrast to the twinkling arpeggios and gradually building pads, it sounds again like a cry of helplessness in the face of suffering - all we can do is keep dancing.
Things draw to a close with the sombre and reflective Iron Bones, featuring Nina Nastasia (known for her neo-Gothic take on folk music) which has a downbeat trip-hop feel, reminiscent of early Plaid’s work with Bjork. But it’s frustratingly tucked away after Oh Thorn!, another unnecessary inclusion which just treads the lyrical refrain from King of Haarlem, and would’ve had more punch as an album-closer but is instead followed by Stick Man Test, a sparse acoustic piece with what sounds like a Middle-Eastern influence. The haunting atmosphere jars with the rest of the album and feels like an anti-climax after all the catharsis that’s come before.
Overall, Strawberry Hotel reaches for some of Underworld’s peak moments, but falters midway through. Maybe this is a symptom of the duo’s creative flow being disrupted by the pandemic, or the challenge presented by unignorable world events and how to integrate their meaning in music that usually trades on escapist euphoria. Either way, it’s still great to have them back.