Tricky: False Idols

It was all downhill from the moment Tricky declared his new album to be better than his genre-defining debut, Maxinquaye . The Bristol man's 10th record can't possibly trump that album's essence, even if he claims it's his "most honest in years". Truthfully, False Idols is an uneven effort, front-loaded with Tricky's usual disembodied trip-hop beats and various female vocalists providing ghostly melodies over his slouchy murmur. Things improve as the tracklisting unfurls, with Peter Silberman of US indie band The Antlers providing texture with his strangled warble on Parenthesis . Is That Your Life interweaves some desperately needed groove with a Nile Rodgers-style guitar motif, but the inclusion of the bizarre Chinese Interlude is incongruous. Mostly, this is a drab, oddly mechanical collection that perplexes more than it inspires.
Trickysite. com">Trickysite.com Download: Parenthesis, Is That Your Life