Dubnobasswithmyheadman by Underworld

Dubnobasswithmyheadman is the record where Underworld were reborn. The third studio album from Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, issued in Britain on Junior Boy's Own, is the first since they ditched the synth-pop of the band's earlier incarnation and threw themselves headlong at the dance floor, and the first with Darren Emerson in the ranks. The band produced it themselves.

What they built is a long, luminous ride: pulsing house and trance grooves that unspool slowly and never quite resolve, with Hyde murmuring cryptic, stream-of-consciousness lines over the top like a man reading his notebook aloud on the night bus. "Dirty Epic" sums it up, a sprawling, hypnotic slow burn that feels as much like a rock band's grand statement as a club track, and it's a long way from the funk-pop outfit that came before.

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