burial: untrue

BACK IN. This is the second full-length release on Hyperdub from the UK's mysterious and much-acclaimed Burial. Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Burial is one of the elite band of whom this truly is the case. In fact, so reluctant is he to engage with the cult-of-personality hoopla that surrounds almost every modern producer and musician of merit, that he remains a genuine recluse; he has never appeared live, only one obliquely-angled publicity photograph is known to exist, and the number of interviews he has given can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet despite this, his music speaks loud and wide, and the world has been listening ever since his South London Boroughs EP debut on Hyperdub in March 2005. His eponymous album, which began life as a low-key release in May 2006, is now widely-regarded as the benchmark release of the ever-widening dubstep genre, picking up unanimous critical acclaim along the way, and ending the year heavily featured in many "best of" polls. Now Burial returns with Untrue, a new record of weird soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporized R&B and smudged 2-step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. The album continues with the debut's crackle-drenched yearning and bustling syncopations, haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. Kicking off with the skittering 2-step syncopations and vocal science of "Archangel," "Near Dark" and "Ghost Hardware," before long it descends into a space of radiant divas and ambience. Where Burial first was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, Untrue is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling bass lines. Unlike the overpoweringly melancholic prevailing mood of before, Burial's sound is now better defined as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album's last track, "Raver." Forget central heating -- the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter. Untrue is available as a full 13-track digipack CD, including recent underground hit "Ghost Hardware," and a 9-track DJ-friendly double vinyl set, from which some of the beatless pieces have been edited.