Second Toughest in the Infants (Deluxe) [Remastered]

Second Toughest in the Infants (1996) wasn't actually Underworld's sophomore album, but it was their second full-length since progressive house DJ Darren Emerson joined the core lineup of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde in 1991, transforming them from a mediocre dance-rock duo into one of the most original, acclaimed, and successful electronic groups of the 1990s. As with its predecessor, 1994's Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest was a critical success as well as a commercial hit, reaching the Top Ten of the U.K. album charts and converting a significant number of American listeners right around the time that "electronica" was being hyped as the next big thing in the United States. In comparison to Dubnobass..., Second Toughest was less club-centric and more diverse in its approach, flirting with drum'n'bass rhythms on a few cuts, experimenting with slide guitar loops on the elegant "Blueski," and slowing to a crawl for its final song, the dreamy "Stagger." The trio proved to be masters of pacing and dynamics, crafting lengthy epics (the album's first two tracks collectively exceed half an hour) that excitedly build and release, flowing through vivid melodic themes and interlocking rhythmic patterns, and segueing from intricate breakbeats to calmer, more downtempo passages. The album's multi-part suites also harked back to another era of "progressive" music, the prog rock of the 1970s, and like that period's most popular groups, Underworld made brainy, ambitious, mystical music that was also accessible and listener-friendly. The album also remains remarkable for Hyde's surrealist, cryptic, free-associative lyrics, particularly on standout tracks like the choppy, Al Green-referencing single "Pearl's Girl." The album's most ecstatic moment, however, is the buzzing, gleeful "Rowla," which piles on dazzling, distorted synth riffs, hushes down for a bit, and then does it all over again. Second Toughest in the Infants endures as a landmark album, spotlighting Underworld at their creative peak, and remaining an important document of an era when experimental, cerebral electronic dance music received significant mainstream attention. [In November of 2015, four months in advance of the 20th anniversary of the album's original release date, Second Toughest was given a deluxe two-CD reissue. In addition to the original album, the release's second disc includes several B-sides (many of which were included on the American edition of the "Pearl's Girl" single, which was long enough to be an album in its own right), a few previously unreleased versions of album cuts, and the group's non-album single "Born Slippy," both in its original instrumental version and the much more well-known ".NUXX" version, which became the group's most popular song due to its inclusion in the film Trainspotting. Other than that enduring, iconic classic, highlights include "Cherry Pie" (a longer, rougher early incarnation of "Rowla") and the ecstatic "Deep Arch."]