| Tricky
Angels With Dirty Faces (Island) |
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| Tricky's third full-length
effort confirms that he has only become more familiar with his jittery
unease. Angels With Dirty Faces puts together the consistenc of
Maxinquaye with the fragmented paranoid delusiveness of Pre-Millennium
Tension - but this time it's almost entirely devoid of the melancholy
yet erotic energies that alleviated some of the tension. Nearly every track
is a muddle - It's significant that each element (guitars, bass and drums)
is simple or soothing, but when thrown together, the ensuing wall-of-sound
is an agitated jumble. The most accessible track, "Broken Homes", a duet
with PJ Harvey (co-produced with Flood) and a full-on choir, has no hook,
just a memorable chorus. Angels is full of flat repitition, never
letting the froove take over from the uneasiness. If you're listening,
you're supposed to be as uncomfortable as he is.
Tricky is a man out of tima and space . "I watch where I venture see / cause I don't like this century" - and the formal elements of his music continue to demonstrate his lack of harmony with the world around him. There's so muich here, but it's all confounded . his love for his daughter ("Carriage For Two" - "I call my baby boo"), his self-carning ("You"), his relationship with Martina ("She's not Tina and I'm not like Ike") and his bewildered horror at the capitalistic corruption of hip-hop musics and urban life ("Money Greedy" and "Record Companies," as well as an off-kilter cover of Slick Rick's "The Moment I Feared"). Tricky has retained his intergrity as an artist ny releasing a grating album that is listenable for no other reason than the painfully intimate articulation of the mond behind it Daniel Chamberlin |
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| "Angels..." presskit |