With his smoke-scorched rasp in fine form, Tricky is back to prove that his bag of tricks is nowhere near empty. On "Blowback," the latest album, Tricky has created his most accessible and evocative music yet.
It's been a long road for Bristol-born Adrian Thaws, better known as trip-hop mastermind Tricky. He spent a few years with Massive Attack before breaking out on his own with a velvet-voiced muse named Martina Topley Bird.
After several years of creating music (and a child) together, Tricky and Bird grew apart. They broke off their relationship personally and, after making one more album together, professionally as well.
This time around, Tricky has chosen Alanis Morissette, Cyndi Lauper and soul-sista Ambersunshower (yes, that's her real name) to be the yins for his yang.
He also joins forces with Californicators Anthony Kiedis (on vocals) and John Frusciante (playing guitar) on the fittingly bad boy-ish "Girls."
Frusciante shows up again - this time on vocals - and Flea (also a Red Hot Chili Pepper) adds in with bass guitar on "#1 Woman," a darker but still fun reworking of the theme song to "Wonder Woman."
And have I mentionedHawkman yet? He provides some of the best reggae vocals this side of Bob Marley. Paired with the sinister beats Tricky loves so much, Hawkman's bouncing skats allow for a formation of an entirely new brand of music.
The to-buy-for singles on "Blowback" are "Evolution Revolution Love," a collaboration with Hawkman and Live's Ed Kowalczyk, and "Five Days," on which Tricky shares vocal and writing credit with Lauper. Who knew Kowalczyk's earthy voice could sound so natural next to Hawkman's heavy, lilting reggae? And Lauper conjures up a convincing persona - confused, desperate, pleading - with her vocals on "Five Days."
On "Bury the Evidence," a song that teases with a muted anticlimax before exploding into electric rage, Hawkman's wails are placed as the backdrop for Tricky's anguished bellows: "It's like a movie/Life doesn't move me/It's like a bullet to the head/It doesn't move me." (Trust me, it sounds a lot more convincing when he says it, considering his history of paranoia and near-hospitalization.) This is one of only a few tracks on "Blowback" that feature Tricky himself in the forefront.
In most songs, he provides some gritty verses in the distance while letting his numerous vocalists do his talking for him.
A surprising choice made on "Blowback" is the cover of Nirvana's "Something in the Way." Hawkman's solemn intonations turn the song into a dirge; it seems almost a requiem for the late and legendary Kurt Cobain.
Also interesting is the sampling of Annie Lennox's "Sweet Dreams" in "You Don't Wanna," a song that features Ambersunshower pulling off a perfect combination of aggression and vulnerability in her voice.
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The one thing that Tricky doesn't do too well is the romantic ballad.
"Your Name" consists of a repeated "I like you, and you like me" chorus (with minimal variation). It's a sweet song, but the constant repetition kills it dead. Fortunately, the stylistic variation of the rest of "Blowback" remedies this small disappointment.
The lyrics on this album are paranoia-soaked, though he has toned down the finger-pointing that pervaded his previous album, "Angels with Dirty Faces."
But what makes the lyrics work so well is the way Tricky and his guest vocalists work with them. For instance, Ambersunshower turns disturbing phrases - like "All I hear are gunshots all over me" - into happy-go-lucky melodies.
On "Blowback," Tricky has minimized the typical self-indulgence. His last two solo endeavors were composed of music that was, in his words, "on the verge of insanity."
Most of his recordings in recent years have made little impact because of their inaccessibility, whereas "Maxinquaye" had the ability to influence music on a global scale.
With this album, Tricky has made what we've been waiting for since "Maxinquaye" blew our minds. With "Blowback," he's back to blow them again.
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