By
Graig Uhlin
Blowback
(Hollywood)
Grade: A-
It's hard to be a fan of Tricky.
The trip-hop master and creator fills his albums with a diverse line-up of musical genres and guest artists - that is, when he is not taking complete creative departures with entire CDs. Stylistically, he is all over the place. He defies classification in a manner that one never knows what to expect with each successive CD.
But, then again, this is exactly why it is so easy to be a fan of Tricky.
With his latest release, Blowback, Tricky returns from the obscure musical experiments of Juxtapose and Nearly God to the more user-friendly roots he exhibited in his as-yet-unparalleled debut Maximquaye. He is his usual dark and sinister self - as an artist, Tricky remains consistently provocative - as he melds ragga with funk rock with rap and lofty ballads on a CD that pushes and pulls listeners in directions they never thought they would want to go until he showed them how sweet it is.
And just like the album as a whole, within each song, Tricky stacks layer upon layer - a musical palimpsest - combining soaring melodic lines with robotic rap in a way that allows his songs to be both hard to the core and soft to the touch. Tricky is Marx's dialectic is musical form - A meets B to create an even greater C.
Much of the CD holds firm to Tricky's homegrown trip-hop roots but some tracks like "Excess" and "Evolution Revolution Love" makes formidable stabs at frequent radio rotation. It seems Tricky may want to make a bid for the same audience enamored by rap acts like Nelly, all the while maintaining the artistic integrity that established his career in the first place. Featuring collaborations with Alanis Morissette, Anthony Kiedis and Cyndi Lauper, Blowback is a masterful new album from a consistently top-notch artist.
