Tricky
Angels With Dirty Faces

THE REVIEW

Third album of his career, this "Angels With Dirty Faces" can prove to be a double-edged sword for many: you either love it or hate it. This is his most controversial album and also the darkest. Recorded entirely at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans, it has many Blues influences, but not in the most traditional sense of the genre; rather, a dark, smoky, mechanical Blues, yet still vibrant. The Trip Hop, Rock, and Blues contaminations will be very hard for many to endure as the entire album tests one's patience, and that is precisely its main feature, managing to get to the end. It takes many listens to fully understand it, and even now, after 6 years, I still haven't fully processed it. More than the songs, if we can call them that, it's the atmospheres of the fourteen tracks, all very urban, hectic, and chaotic yet still alive and dynamic that strike.

This chapter also features some special guest appearances, such as PJ Harvey (his idol) who duets on "Broken Homes" and rails against record companies between a Gospel choir and Marc Ribot's acoustic guitar ("...because success needs killing, murder is media..."). The music business is also targeted in "Money Greedy" and "Record Companies." Among the album's best tracks, without a doubt, I mention "Carriage For Two" with an (ultimate) increasingly anguished Martina, echoing the lyrics of Billie Holiday and her "The Child." The sensual and lazy "Analyze Me" is the best piece on the album where Tricky talks about his suicidal mother while Martina has never been so sly; "Talk To Me (AWDF)" borders on psychedelia, "Mellow," and "Money Greedy" highlight how Tricky was adept at choosing real musicians (Perry Melius above all) who play over the samples; "The Moment I Feared" (Slick Rick cover) anticipates the main sound of "Juxtapose"; "Demise" and "Tear Out My Eyes" are maximally claustrophobic (again with Perry Melius on percussion). The album closes with "Taxi" and "Peyote Sings" where Tricky dialogues with himself (pure self-irony but also satire), with Serge Tsai dividing the various episodes with his "monologue."

I strongly recommend the album to those discovering Tricky because once you've digested this, you'll devour his other albums in one bite.