Underworld – Barbara Barbara We Face a Shining Future

Underworld’s first album in six years starts with what could arguably be described as their biggest banger since Beaucoup Fish's Kittens from 1999. I Exhale distils all that's good and deliciously nasty about the veteran duo in an eight-minute slice. Followed by the distinctly downbeat If Rah and marginally more propulsive Low Burn, by the time you hit Santiago Cuatro (Underworld in Jose Feliciano country; you expect it to take an acoustic guitar and explode. It doesn’t), you think: Barbara… is less massive comeback than slight return.

And then they smash it; Motorhome might verge on a ballad but it's a pretty racket with an ecstatic Polyphonic Spree-like break at its core. Ova Nova also uses its simplicity to startling effect; Hyde’s vocals lower in the mix but more messed up than before. And they keep the best till last: Nylon Strung might well be their finest moment since '93 classic Rez.

Some three decades after they first started scheming, this is far from a tired cash-in from a pair of past-their-best geezers; there are moments here that stand alongside Underworld's best.