Tricky: Angels With Dirty Faces

Tricky's first two albums, 1994's Maxinquaye and 1996's Pre-Millennium Tension, are larger-than-life exercises in moody menace, with innovative mixtures of narcotic beauty and end-of-the-world posturing. They're also a bit overrated: Tricky is undeniably a brilliant, one-of-a-kind visionary—with Massive Attack, he helped invent trip-hop—but his records are more compelling than they are fun to listen to. The same is true of the new Angels With Dirty Faces, on which he churns out a dense, apocalyptic assortment of disjointed beats and haunting sounds, but usually neglects to assemble them into fully formed songs. Which isn't to say the album lacks admirable feats: An almost unrecognizable Polly Jean Harvey adds gauzy sensuality to the dirgy single "Broken Homes," while "6 Minutes" builds a paralyzingly paranoid mood. But there are just as many clamorous misfires, like "Talk To Me (Angels With Dirty Faces)," which just clatters tunelessly without going anywhere. As a whole, Angels With Dirty Faces just isn't what it's cracked up to be, and part of the problem is that Tricky doesn't cede vocal duties to longtime partner and chanteuse Martina often enough. His burbling, guttural vocals supply the album with yet another element of danger, but his detached delivery is as much a liability as an asset, especially when it's not counterbalanced often enough. The trip-hop sound Tricky helped pioneer earlier in the decade has been co-opted by fluffy, radio-friendly shills like Mono; that band's music is all about calculated mood and melody, with little of the unpredictable, claustrophobic darkness that might have deepened its songs. Tricky's albums suffer from almost the opposite problem: There's plenty of moody, claustrophobic darkness throughout Angels With Dirty Faces, but little of the melody and focus that might have made it truly enduring.