Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 19/11/07
Label: Hyperdub

We're living in a time of too much exposure. From the top down, Britney to the bloggers that nobody reads, everyone, it seems, is baring the contents of their ridiculous lives (or rather more in the case of Ms Spears) and encouraging the rest of us to consume it. But whether it's Lenny Kravitz launching his new album MySpace-style or Bebo's piss-poor soap opera "Kate Modern" or OK GO churning out viral YouTube videos, you have to ask whether any of this fannying around is actually having much impact.

Or, putting it another way, we may be getting all sorts of sh*t in all sorts of interesting new ways but is any of it, you know, like, improving the cultural experience? Would The Beatles, for instance, have churned out six epoch defining albums in three years if they'd been preoccupied with boosting their friend-count on Facebook?

As much as his music - which is amazing, by the way - it is his refusal to play this sort of game that makes Burial so special. According to a recent interview, only about five people outside of his family even know he makes music. If it was a marketing strategy, then this in itself would be genius. Anonymity rules. And, like art terrorist/graffiti twat Banksy, the fact we don't know who Burial is makes us love him a whole lot more. Denial is a very powerful weapon. Particularly in 2007.

As with the eponymous 2006 debut, "Untrue" is a devastatingly accurate depiction of urban UK - plugging the listener into the matrix of some godforsaken south London satellite, with its identikit fast food joints, repellent inhabitants and anonymous decaying sprawl. But Burial, like any artist worth their salt, finds beauty in these surrounds. Witness the subtle ambient melody washes behind "Dog Shelter", which recalls, rather improbably, the more esoteric end of 4AD's catalogue. Or the sad dying novas of "Raver", or the Eno-like swoosh of "In McDonalds". A Justin Timberlake-style tie-in is, you imagine, unlikely to materialise.

If this sounds a bit fuzzy, then that's probably the point. The closest we get to actual songs are the title track and set-killer "Archangel", where indistinct phrases - "kissing you...let it be alone...holding you..." - are sliced and diced over skittering drums, yet more oceanic synths and deep, dark bass. The whole kit and caboodle is then fed through an echo chamber. The title of one-off single "Ghost Hardware" says it all really - human music made by machines. It may be downbeat and otherworldly, but it makes you feel alive.

Whether you'd want to feed this into your head on the night bus home is another story. But what started with The Specials and "Ghost Town" 27 years ago has found its ultimate conclusion here. Forget your Hard-Fis, Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys: Burial is the true sound of the suburbs.

    by Adam Webb