Underworld: A Hundred Days Off

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

There's always was something smarter, stranger and sleeker about Underworld, the veteran outsiders of British dance who between 1999's previous album Beaucoup Fish and this one went from trio to duo with the departure of DJ Darren Emerson. And with him, the theory goes, would go the dance foundations that keep the outfit's arty urges in check.

Except A Hundred Days Off, while suffering some flat patches and showing little major change in approach, can still get unnervingly groovy. Arty too - they were always one part Brian Eno to two parts Giorgio Moroder and here those elements are pulling in sometimes different directions.

So you get Underworld sings-the-digital-blues of Trim wandering into guitar-chimed ambience of Ess Gee as the lull before the Bronto-beat storm of Dinosaur Adventure 3D.

Or the piano-vamped Twist sounding not a million miles from St Germain territory meandering into Sola Sistim's sci-fi torch tune before Little Speaker finds the button marked "wobbly bottomed house " and it snowballs onwards.

The two opening epics - the Moroder-disco of Mo Move and the single Two Months Off, where Karl Hyde's mad-auctioneer vocals make it an instant possible feelgood hit of the summer - sets up the expectation something momentous is afoot. Unfortunately, while it's intriguing A Hundred Days Off also can't quite sustain the attention throughout.

Label: JBO/V2