A Hundred Days Off by Underworld

A Hundred Days Off, Underworld's sixth album, arrived on V2 and Junior Boy's Own in 2002 as the first record since Darren Emerson's exit, leaving Karl Hyde and Rick Smith at the controls, with Smith producing. Anyone braced for a reinvention got something subtler. The trance, techno and house DNA is intact, but the pounding kick drums of Beaucoup Fish have been dialed way down, and the pair drift into ambient haze and stranger, more experimental corners instead.

Hyde's cryptic, stream-of-consciousness murmurs still float through the mix like overheard radio chatter. "Two Months Off" is the sunburst at the center, a euphoric climb that reached number 12 on the UK singles chart, while "Dinosaur Adventure 3D" made it to 34. It's a headphones record more than a warehouse one, and it wears the change of personnel with surprising calm.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.