Dub be good to me

If you'll excuse the pun, the work of UK producer Burial has always been pretty much an underground thing. But if you are willing to do a little bit of digging, what you will be rewarded with on new album "Untrue" is one of the greatest slices of electronic beat-making you will hear this or any other year. Spawned from the UK dubstep/2-step/garage/drum n bass scene, a scene that is confusing in its definitions and inconsistency but occasionally brilliant in output, Burial's true identity is unknown to all but a handful of his closest friends and family. The mystery behind his moniker is added a slightly sinister air by the moodiness of the music itself, but in fact appears to just be an effort for the artist to remain in the background and let the music do all of the talking.

And talk it does, with an electronic eloquence that only twisted urban dance music can muster, the sounds of a million nights out filtered through one man's recollections. Burial's 2006 self-titled debut album, put together over 6 years, was a dark and melancholic wander through London's nightlife, capturing the desolation and often narcotic wondering of the 5am washout, basslines still fuzzing in your ears, and beats skittering off into the near distance. Restless and insistent it was an album that not only defined the dubstep genre, but went beyond it and blew it wide open. And instead of suffering from second album paralysis, Burial has simply sat down and created a masterpiece to follow-up with. Building on the successes of the first release, but more vocal-laden, the album is almost euphoric, but in a completely downplayed fashion, and skirting around being downright desperate.

Addictive and filled with familiar yet elusive noises and the crackle of vinyl, the soundscapes are classical in their ambition, and pulled off with a real verve, creating an almost dreamlike environment. Borrowing from the sensitive vocal stylings of R n B, this album has soul in abundance and as such is also surprisingly emotive and startlingly joyous, despite dripping in a peculiar kind of melancholy. But what really sets this album apart from others in the disjointed genre, and from other albums more generally, catapulting it to instant classic status in my view, is the innovation of the syncopation and beat-making. It truly is like nothing you have ever heard before, and yet sparkles with the memory of your favourite tunes from the dirty dance floors you have visited and revisited over the years. If rave music is long dead, which of course it is, Burial is holding a very strange séance and dancing a jiog on its grave very much of his own making.

Don't sleep on this album and believe the hype. All of it.