Underworld – Beaucoup Fish

A really strong album from Underworld. And why wouldn't it be?! It's Underworld! This album was the last in what I believe was Underworld's golden years, before Emerson left. 'A Hundred Days Off', which attempted to follow this, didn't really take my liking. This, however, is a lesson in how to make a good album.

It starts with 'Cups', which works very well as an opener. That almost orchestral sounding opening before Underworld's signature buzzy techno stuff gets into high gear to show you what you're getting into. 'Push Upstairs' follows this nicely, being techno through and through.

'Jumbo' is without a doubt the finest track on the album. The beautiful synths, it's like taking a walk out in a bright green forest, expressed purely through sound. The nine minute version included in '1992-2012' would have done nicely here, just to savour as much of that track as there was.

'King of Snake' is another goody, and is mainly there to please the techno-heads after 'Jumbo'. And it does so, being the second best head-banger on the album. We'll get to that.

Then we move away from singles. 'Winjer' is... not the finest. Definitely the weakest track on the album. 'Skym', however, is almost a pop ballad, and somehow, it fits. A really nice track with Hyde on vocals. Of course, his vocals are drenched in effects, but that makes it all the better. 'Bruce Lee' barely counts as a single, and is alright, but not single material. What should have been a single is what follows it.

'Kittens' is the second best track on the album, behind 'Jumbo'. The stark contrast of the Emerson-percussion techno drums and symphonic synth breakdowns inbetween is astounding, and makes for what I believe to be Underworld's best efforts to recreate the energy found in 'Born Slippy .NUXX'. The track was so full of umph that, as others have pointed out, a crudely edited version of it was placed on the soundtrack of futuristic racer 'Wip3out'. I do play the game every now and again, although I try to avoid losing my shit when 'Kittens' comes on. I still wanna win!

'Push Downstairs' is a good track to close on, the answer to the much earlier 'Push Upstairs', but they chose not to close it just there. 'Something Like a Mama' is similar to 'Bruce Lee', and once again is alright.

Then, finally, Underworld decide "fuck it, this guy's sat through enough quieter tracks, let's blow his head off". 'Moaner' is quite possibly the most aggressive track I've ever heard in my life. The synths roaring with the cutoff set so high it's probably broken their keyboard, Hyde practically screaming into the microphone, Emerson firing as much percussion as his drum machine will let him use, it's absolute mayhem. It fades out early, however. The end, matching the rest of the album, is a quieter section with some floating synth pads. I feel if they let it play out, the album would have ended a bit easier. The ending here feels a bit forced.

Overall, a damn good album. Lots of good songs and (almost) no duds, Underworld still taking in the sweet highs of their peak before they began to descend back down the mountain.

♫ I need sugar, I need a little water sugar ♫

Jumbo has been my favorite song eversince the first time I hit play.
This album in particular caught my attention because a 3 minute version of "Kittens" was featured in WipEout 3, a game I'm a huge fan of. not the best banger on the track list but a noteworthy addition like all the rest.

There are a few lows and highs and some of the songs are a lot less exciting than the rest, this is one of those trance albums you might need a little bit of patience to appreciate.

There are maybe too many breaks on the album, "Shudder/King Of Snake - Push Upstairs - Moaner - Kittens" needs to be listened to in sequence in my opinion, instead of all the jumbled up tracks, from that almost half the album will flow.

Wonderful album! I personally prefer this over Dubnobasswithmyhean (however I would say that Second Toughest in the Infants is on par with this)

Boredom, zero innovation, sound from a laptop ... Here is an example of the total collapse of techno music in the late 1990s.

BRILLIANT! I am a jazz man. But this is on my list as well. You can hear and imagine that these guys always listened to the right music. And they transferred it in a completely different vein. Very deep and emotional. LIKE!

Jumbo and Cups are... magic! Coming from a different world (and I was living a different life when I discovered this somewhere in Budapest, visiting a friend). Pure melancholic beauty !

back in 1999, i was only into melodic punk rock and crossover: i knew bands like the chemical brothers, but only by name. i totally ignored big beat, house, electro and so on; then, one evening on mtv italy (rest in peace!) i catched "push upstairs": that tune changed my view (and my life too). loving this album since then!

This is my favourite Underworld album and it's also their most popular/accessible one. What I like about it is that it contains crazy thoughtless headbanging tracks like "King Of Snake" and "Push Upstairs" along with deep, beautiful and atmospheric stuff like "Cups", "Something Like A Mama" and "Jumbo". Absolutely essential for EVERY collection, regardless of what you're usually listening to.

Brilliant. Contrived as almost a concept album with singles spliced inbetween -- "Push Upstairs," "Push Downstairs" and the unbelievably, gloriously bitter and furiously intense "Moaner" relating a story about a dark long-distance relationship. "Jumbo" is simply one of the most beautiful and wonderful techno tracks ever recorded. "Kittens" is a raucously frenetic beat with meandering fuzz synth backing, crazy and endearing like the little balls o'fur themselves. The only misstep is "Something Like a Mama," which deserves skipping en route to "Moaner."