REVIEW: Thievery Corporation - Culture Of Fear

Thievery Corporation
Culture Of Fear
(Shock/ESL)
½ (out of 5)

Washington DC-based duo Thievery Corporation embraces the quasi-political nature of their name with Culture Of Fear, their sixth studio album. “Seems to me like they want us to be afraid, man. Or maybe we just like being afraid. Maybe we’re just so used to it at this point that it’s a part of us, a part of our culture. Security alert on Orange. It’s been on Orange since ’01, see. I mean, what’s up, man? Can’t a brother get Yellow, man? Just for, like, two months or something? God damn, sick of that.”

Guest vocalist Mr Lifa’s spoken word intro to the title track mirrors the dark menace of the CCTV image on the cover, part of the album’s sophisticated artwork. But that’s Thievery Corporation for you. Over the years they’ve made cool look easy.

Fourteen years after releasing debut album Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi, the musical template hasn’t shifted much from the trip-hop, dub, lounge, soul base they’ve been mining successfully as artists and label honchos. It still cruises along without radical change of tempo, style, mood or spectrum. But within that idiom, Rob Garza, Eric Hilton and the host of talented guests on the album deliver a seamless stream of beautiful tunes coming to a Starbucks near you.

This type of music, as smooth and palatable as it is, generally gets co-opted by retailers, cafés and bars wanting uncomplicated, non-confrontational, easily digested background music. Throw it on a decent sound system and it’s a different story. The lush instrumentation and production are faultless, proof that Garza and Hilton have continued to improve as musicians and producers.

Which means the only criticism possible is that they don’t challenge themselves, their collaborators or the audience enough. Culture of complacency?

By Barney