Unfortunately for Tricky, the days of worldwide critical acclaim and not-unimpressive commercial prosperity are now largely behind him, a circumstance he railed against on 2001's Mission Accomplished EP, an incredibly bitter kiss-off to the evidently evil motherfuckers at his old record label. Fortunately for Tricky's fans, Vulnerable, the first album he's released on his own Brown Punk imprint, demonstrates that this fate hasn't convinced him to dive into overworked nü-metal or gloopy synth-pop. Well, almost: "Where I'm From" sugarcoats serrated guitars with bleeping keyboards and sounds very much like Linkin Park masquerading as Duran Duran (which, come to think of it, might not be such a bad thing). And there are bizarre covers of XTC's "Dear God" and the Cure's "The Love Cats" that similarly vacillate between genius and rubbish.
But most of Vulnerable finds Tricky making the same disorienting noise he's always made, floating new collaborator Costanza Francavilla's wispy singing and his own iron-lung rasp over chugging polyrhythms and sinuous, minor-key melodies, emphasizing mood and texture over any easily grasped sense of structure. Post-millennium tension is no vacation.
