FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
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| CD REVIEW Tricky · Third album from the dark prince of U.K. dance culture. · The gorgeous "Broken Homes" features the vocals of P.J. Harvey. If there's a hell below, Tricky has found his own personal purgatory. Angels With Dirty Faces follows the footsteps of Pre-Millennium Tension, Tricky's 1996 release; a lonely corner of music's psyche filled with dark, drawn-out rhythms punctuated only by his bile-filled vocals, which are answered by Martina's heavenly cries with the spirit of Billie Holiday. Where Pre-Millennium Tension was filled with fury, Angels finds our Tricky kid bogged down with emotion, almost unable to move. Yet the rhythms here are some of Tricky's most interesting and innovative. The drum beats fly like furious immortal jazz solos; the devil which keeps Tricky searching for his angel. Greed, spousal abuse, fear and record companies' acceptance of violence are the objects of his scorn, the blood between his teeth. Blues, hip hop, gospel and dub guide him, but in the end his soul remains tortured, stuck between heaven and hell. Prometheus remains unbound. 4/5 |
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