I do think it got more of a panning at the time than it deserved but it's hardly a flawless masterpiece either. What NO-related album is though? (aside from say Closer or Low-life!) My main complaints with it was one or two of the dance tracks are a bit too Europop/M People (If You've Got Love is twee and totally pointless), the production is a bit too laboured (something they later admitted) and it's probably a bit too long (13 tracks? Should've been 10-11 at most).
They also let some cracking material go on the b-sides that blatantly should've been on the main album to begin with. It was nice to see them realising this with a succinct edit of Imitation Of Life on the recent Best Of; if there was ever a track that should've ended up somewhere in the RTP running order then that was it. Ditto for tracks like I Feel Alright and to a lesser extent All That I Need (which ended up on the Japanese import anyway). Add to that some of the remixes from the Second Nature and Until The End of Time releases are also just very, very good pieces of electronic pop. The Fluffy Dice UTEOT and Plastik Mix Second Nature sound great even 12-13 years on.
The album does soar at the beginning with Forbidden City, For You, Dark Angel and One Day... I would personally rearrange the rest swapping out the more dated Europop tracks and swapping in b sides and the occasional edit. Second Nature in particular benefitted from a succinct outro fade as featured on the US Promo CD. There's no need for 1 full minute of Denise Johnson going "nah nah nah-nah-nah" really.
Underrated? Yes. Masterpiece? Not really but by no means a turd.
