"[4] Many of Hyde's lyrics were written during his sojourn in the US: "Dark and Long" was intended to evoke the open prairies of Minnesota that he had visited while working in Minneapolis, and "Mmm Skyscraper...

Hyde stated that the biggest influences at the time on his writing style had been Lou Reed's 1989 album New York, and playwright Sam Shepard's autobiography Motel Chronicles.

It features black and white type that has been "multiplied, smeared, and overlaid" so much that it is nearly unreadable, alongside a "bold symbol consisting of a fractured handprint inside a broken circle".

Writing in Melody Maker, a year before he left to co-found the specialist dance music magazine Muzik, Ben Turner proclaimed that "Dubnobasswithmyheadman is the most important album since The Stone Roses and the best since Screamadelica ...

1 hit the previous year], Underworld have taken a step back, utilising Karl Hyde and Rick Smith's experience in rock music and throwing it full in the face of 22-year-old DJ, Darren Emerson.

The result is utterly contemporary, the sound of the moment, beautifully capturing melodic techno, deranged lyricism, historic bass and lead guitars and astounding walls of rhythm ...

"[19] Dele Fadele of NME said, "Before Underworld's startling remixes for Björk and Orbital last year, no-one would've put money on ex-members of ... popsters Freur making the first visionary record of '94 ...

[22] In a retrospective review, John Bush from AllMusic wrote that the album's "innovative blend of classic acid house, techno, and dub" showed that "in a decade awash with stale fusion", Underworld were "truly a multi-genre group".

Reviewing the reissue, Q described the album as "superb" and proposed that Hyde and Smith's previous 14 years of making music "was why the uncannily undated Dubnobasswithmyheadman still exudes such multidimensional sophistication".

The poster of the DAT called it "just a sampling of the type of songs the band was creating, showing any potential label that was interested ..."[41] ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.