Culture Of Fear

Thievery Corporation: Culture of Fear Label: ESL Music

I've reviewed a lot of Thievery Corporation in the last decade. I hate to say it but I'm disappointed in this CD. They used to be magical, highly regarded producers of great downtempo electronica. They blended a variety styles from all over the world, from bossa nova to Indian classical to dub. However, this CD is virtually all dub, and this might be OK if they were merely dub artists. But as electronica artists I expect innovation and I don't see any here. All the breathy female vocal tracks sound alike (flat, kinda one-note). Even their supposedly "political" message is lost - I think there's currently more confrontational electronic music in dubstep and tech-house than this album. I will, however, recommend tracks 1,11,12,13.

1) Lush synths, funky spy-guitars, dubby bass, long break in middle, fem vox
2) Hip-hop track, political words, FCC *shit* @ 0:36 and 2:40
3) Dubby bass, swirly synths, female chanteuse vocals that are a bit one-note
4) Dub-breaks with bright melodic synths, snappy drums & snares
5) Stoned-out reggae-dub with similarly stoned-out vocals, warbly effects
6) Breathy ballad w/ female vocals, sweepy jazz drums and loopy lilting synths
7) Long & meandering dub-trip-hop track that doesn't really go anywhere
8) Again, sultry fem vox (can't tell her apart from Lou Lou) over spacey dub
9) Rasta-man vocals doing chants over conga-laden dub
10) Short little vocal ballad feat. the breathy Lou Lou
11) Thumpy broken beat trip-hop with their signature synth washes
12) Straight-up roots-reggae that's definitely a throwback to the old days
13) Sensual track w/ fem vocals, stripped-down broken beat & bubbly synths