|
Juxtapose
08/17/1999 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Jon Young
"All I do is rhyme," murmurs Tricky at the start of Juxtapose, but don't believe him for a second. Nothing's ever the way it seems with this British maverick. Though collaborating with hit producers DJ Muggs (Cypress Hill) and Grease (DMX) this time around, Tricky's creating the same shadowy, paranoid hip-hop that made his previous works so thrilling--if occasionally frustrating. Beats tend to be murky rather than clearcut. Tricky mutters and growls, instead of rapping outright. And songs are sketchy fragments, not finished pieces.
Tricky's charisma fades in broad daylight, but after midnight he's downright spooky. Menacing and dense, "Bom Bom Diggy" hovers like a nasty hallucination; in "Call Me," sweet songstress D'na segues smoothly from "I'll wait for you" to "I'll hate for you," with unsettling results. The itchy "She Said" crackles with impotent desperation and suggestions of death by foul play.
One minus: speedy spieler Mad Dog, meant to balance Tricky's subterranean monologues, comes off silly and obnoxious on the juvenile porno fantasy "I Like The Girls." Otherwise, Juxtapose casts a wicked spell.
|
