Favourite Underworld Tracks

What are your favourite Underworld tracks? (pick three, no more, no less)

  • Total voters
    37
Yeah, the day I sat down and read the lyrics while listening to the music was the day V became my favorite album of all time. The music flows so well and the story was pretty neat and told well throughout the album. I'm not even a fan of lyrical content in general, but I believe it's a must to really understand that album.
 
I know all of the lyrics, and knowing this story certainly won't boost or decrease my opinion of the album, but I somehow never synthesized a story out of them. A theme, yes, but not a story.
 
anonym115 said:
I know all of the lyrics, and knowing this story certainly won't boost or decrease my opinion of the album, but I somehow never synthesized a story out of them. A theme, yes, but not a story.
Click to expand...

That's pretty wild since you say you get such evocative imagery out of Underworld. Maybe you mean just that, imagery, and not an actual story. Because there really is very little story going on with that album. It's got a theme and it's really cool too! I think we can all agree that the Odyssey is by far the coolest song ever though. It's a tour de force of epicness :popcorn:
 
Underworld, Without You and Charon. My preferences changed over time, what can I say.

About the Swansong vrs. Without you "dilemma", I must say that Swansong feels too forced trying to imply some references to Accolade II and Through the Looking Glass, but is fairly inferior to both. Without You is positioned perfectly within the tracklist and despite having the DWoT reference, feels like a more sincere and better constructed song. About Legend, I feel it a little messy, as Hell and Back; still they're really strong songs.

Run with the Devil is getting odder at every listening, I understand now why some people were finding it strange. Kiss of Fire and In My Darkest hour are great, but simply not my favorites. Overture is getting interesting over time, but is jut too short.

About Charon, I really like the verses, the bridge with the sitar drone (that brings the flashback to Egypt I think) and the chorus. But the instrumental parts... I don't know, definitely had more potential. It's a mistery to me that Pinella has been credited on this song despite the keyboard doesn't have the presence you might expect.

In another subject, does anyone else feels like the album is splitted on two? The more modern side of SX (tracks 1 to 5) and their attempt to sound more "vintage" (tracks 7 to 11), and in the middle, Charon, the Ferryman?


:popcorn:

I may be overthinking, I know :Spin:
 
I, too, feel that the album is split in half, but I don't think it's by vintage vs modern necessarily. I think it is more of a change in emotion from dark to pure.

I like your thinking with the split being "ferried" by Charon. Something I noticed the other day was that the solo licks in Charon remind me alot of torrential/rough water flow/waves, but I think it might be a sort of placebo effect haha.
 
I find that some of the weakest points on the album are the choruses. The choruses are so predictable/conventional, and they do nothing for me. If you want to make a heavy, dark album, that's cool... but get rid of the cheesy, 80s metal/90s power metal choruses then. It irritates me when Rullo plays steady 16th notes on the bass drum, and snare hits on 1-2-3-4 every chorus. Rullo is amazing; he's capable of so much more than that.
There are a lot of moments that are great, but as a whole, it's very disappointing to me. I've listened to it in my car about 10 times now.

Overture: I like it. Wish it was longer.
Nevermore: Very average to me. Pre-chorus is nice.
Underworld: Love the screams and the riff that follows each one.
Without You: Actually a pretty good song overall. Pre-chorus grouping in 3s is great, and the tempo change for the chorus is an amazing touch.
Kiss of Fire: Brutal. Great track overall. The only part I don't care for is the "being burried" part. I wish the outro went on longer and developed into a wicked separate section because it's badass. Blast beats are a perfect fit in the intro and chorus.
Charon: Probably the most SX-sounding song. Great track, especially the verse.
To Hell and Back: Intro is great. Second half of song is heavy and enjoyable. Chorus? Ugh.
In My Darkest Hour: Can't remember much ATM. I remember it being very average.
Run with the Devil: Should've been left off.
Swan Song: Like somebody else said, it feels like it's trying really hard to connect with the older fans. Feels contrived. Best solo on the album, however. Chord change in the chorus is unexpected, which I appreciate.
Legend: Nice verse. Cheesy chorus. Don't know why so many people like this one. Odd time signature sounds forced.
 
Cool comments. I genuinely think this album has some of the strongest choruses of any of their albums, though. Actually it's probably tied with V and Odyssey in the chorus department for me. I think the second Hell and Back chorus is one of the actual best choruses I have ever heard.
 
anonym115 said:
Cool comments. I genuinely think this album has some of the strongest choruses of any of their albums, though. Actually it's probably tied with V and Odyssey in the chorus department for me. I think the second Hell and Back chorus is one of the actual best choruses I have ever heard.
Click to expand...

Half the time, I'm thinking Dragonforce trolled my disc and put their choruses in place of the real ones.

Haken does choruses right. Every chorus on the Visions album is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9HB0gOr0-Q

To me, this is a great chorus by Leprous. It's perfect. Underworld choruses are just cheesy to me :(

Evolution from V has a great chorus. It's inventive. I actually have no problem with the choruses on V at all.
 
The "aaaaaa x3, The Legend never dies" part sometimes feels a little incomplete, but the chorus of the song is not inferior to Evolution IMO. Haken and Leprous are VERY different from SX, so even if they (SX) could be able to write such choruses, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't bother...
 
Obviously liking choruses is a very subjective thing. Electric Messiah is probably my favorite chorus from Iconoclast, and I've already heard some opinions to the contrary. I don't know what exactly makes a chorus interesting to me. I want to hear a melody I've never heard before, I want to hear an exciting groove or an interesting chord change, I just want it to sound "cool." But why does the chorus remain interesting after I've already heard it before? Why do I continue to think the chorus is great? Like the chorus of Revelation, one of my favorite choruses from the band ever? I can't really say what makes a chorus "good" to me. So it is totally understandable why some of the choruses that the band comes up with are not my cup of tea. On the new album I think Nevermore, Underworld, Charon, To Hell and Back, Run With the Devil and Legend all have excellent choruses, which is something I could only say for 3 or 4 of the 12 tracks on Iconoclast.
 
Hey, Electric Messiah is my favorite chorus from Iconoclast too. The ad-libs in the final chorus are especially great. I love that entire song though. So many killer unique parts and yet it all flows so well. Perfect example of how you can be heavy, progressive and catchy at the same time.

I also think the choruses are the strongest part of this album and it seems to be the thing they focused on the most. I also see why people wouldn't like them (and I don't love them all either) because it's a completely different style now. To go along with the new "streamlined" approach to their songwriting in general, they've opted for a more sing along, immediately catchy, rhyming style of chorus. In older Symphony X songs, the chorus would progress through a single unique, flowing melody. You can still hear this on the title track here, but I think literally everything on V is that way except Absence of Light where the "so falls the night" line matches the "absence of light" line. Now, they mainly use repetition for the melodies in all choruses. It's an easy technique to make it instantly singable and give it that "radio-frendliness" or whatever you want to call it. I think it worked for the most part with these types of songs, but it really just isn't that interesting to listen to after a while.
 
I generally look at an individual repetition of a repeated melody when deciding if I like a chorus, so that I'm not affected by any catchiness the repetition adds to my opinion of the song. I'm with Adam on this one, though, in that I have almost no idea what makes me like a chorus. It just needs to be good and/or cool, as immature and naive as that sounds. Same with guitar solos and pre-choruses.
 
The concept behind why one enjoys a chorus or not is definitely strange.

Evolution is in a different league from Legend. If I'm not mistaken, there is a key change in the middle of it.
Fallen? Epic chorus.
Egypt? Nothing like it.
Absence of Light? Groovy.
Fool's? Another classic.

To me, V is just in a different league. It's much more sophisticated. If I heard Underworld without knowing it was SX, I'd think they were a band who would never be capable of creating something like V. It blows my mind to know that it's the same group o' guys.
When I listen to somebody like Vanden Plas or Threshold, I know for a fact that they're not capable of creating something as deeply rich and musically sophisticated as V. I just know it.
 
I think if I were to rank musical quality vs sonic quality (aka how much I individually prefer) the albums, I would end up with 2 different orders:

Musically, I think it's pretty clear it goes something like:

V > DWOT >= Odyssey >Twilight > Damnation Game >= Underworld >=Paradise Lost > Iconoclast

Whereas, as I've said before, my personal preference and opinion on which songs I actually enjoy the most yield something like:

Underworld > Odyssey >= V > DWOT > Twilight > Paradise Lost >= Damnation Game > Iconoclast

Just because something is musically superior doesn't mean it sounds as good to my ears, nor does it mean that I have to like it as much. Sometimes things that are slightly inferior just hit my ears in a much more effective way.

You can be sophisticated, clever, musical, structurally/tonally/stylistically unique all day, but the actual melodies and presentation and energy that you convey in the process could be inferior to certain kinds of ears, even those who truly appreciate great music.

I could easily list 20 things at least that I don't like about V, whereas I can do maybe 10 or so for Underworld. I know that some of these dislikes are more importatn or more impactful than others, but I think as an average I can compare those 10 to the other 20 in good conscience. Combine this with the fact that I actually like many of the riffs and melodies better on UW, and I end up in this weird limbo where I'm totally willing to admit that V is more of a masterpiece, but I can't concede that it's a better album.
 
I mean, I'm glad this came up, as I hadn't really thought about it, and I'm glad I did. You'd think it was a sin around here to not prefer V over all other SX albums, haha.
 
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