Oblivion With Bells - Underworld
Oblivion With Bells Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 24 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 23 Ratings

  • Summary: After five years of working on other projects, including film scores, Underworld returns with their fifth album.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 24
  2. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. Oblivion With Bells is less the comedown than the sound of the party still going 10 years on.
  2. Unfortunately, though, while they sound brighter and more alive than they have in a while, their default mode still leans a little too heavily on Hyde's increasingly silly beat poetry and the kind of unashamedly booming drums that haven't sounded exciting since, well, 1997.
  3. Oblivion With Bells is a competent record and, it must be said, far stronger than the most recent releases by '90s contemporaries The Prodigy or The Chemical Brothers.
  4. After an auspicious introduction Oblivion With Bells has disappointingly descended into an irreconcilable docile abyss.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 17
  2. Negative: 1 out of 17
  1. MorganH.
    9
    This is a new kind of Underworld, significantly better than the last new-kind-of-Underworld we saw on A Hundred Days Off. They smash together all of their sounds - combining the gritty dark beats of dubnobass with the bright, poppy synths of Beaucoup Fish and the weird, experimental work of their recent soundtracks and EPs. Is there a little Second Toughest in there as well? Holding The Moth (which attentive followers of UW will know as Globe) harks back to those days. Boy Boy Boy might be my favourite track, although it's hard to pick one; it's a kind of synthesis of previous sounds with something new, and it comes out rocking and thumping and everything you wanted. You were let down, perhaps, by A Hundred Days Off, and the four year gap that followed it. If, like me, you were thrilled to hear Crocodile for the first time, to hear that return to their original thumping beats and glorious harmonies, you're going to love this album. Expand
  2. Rub
    9
    I think this album is quite good. pleasantly surprised.
  3. BitBurn
    7
    As excited as I was getting my hands on this new album I must say though I was a little bit disappointed when I first heard the whole thing. It
  4. JamesJ.
    3
    It's sad but underworld has fallen off. I almost wish I didn't even give it a listen but it still can't diminish their past brilliant works. Expand

See all 17 User Reviews