Reviews
Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's.", "A dark, paranoid classic....Containing classics 'Overcome,' 'Ponderosa, 'Hell Is Round The Corner'...", Tied for #1 on Melody Maker's list of 1995's `Albums Of The Year' - "...sounded like the apex of an epoch. Taking cues from...Massive Attack and Portishead, and blending them with more sinister hues borrowed from John Barry's Bond themes...", 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Trip-hop is the current label being given this music, but it's no more than a cute, reasonably accurate headline. At any given time, certain pop records--more than books or movies or whatever--strike a chord...as the sound of the beyond cool. Right now, Tricky's MAXINQUAYE is it...", "The resulting sex-as-death masterwork perfected the texture-torture album decades before Burial and the Weeknd could get their grubby hands on a sampler.", 4 stars out of 5 -- "MAXINQUAYE remains the British postmodern album of the 90s....'Brand New Retro' is the most driving thing here...", Ranked #36 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums", Ranked #77in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "It Sounds like a Greatest Hits.", Included in Q's 50 Best Albums of 1995., Ranked #2 in Village Voice's 1995 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll., Ranked #1 in NME's `Top 50 Albums Of The Year' for 1995 - "...foggy hip-hop track without a compass, a record where you never quite know what's going to happen next or where it's going to take you...", Ranked #3 in the 1996 Critics' Poll., "...It's not just `bottom end,' though there's plenty of bass rumbling through these dub-wise grooves, but the music's depth of field--the way the vocals, samples and keyboard parts arrange themselves into layers of foreground and background...", Ranked #14 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s.", Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums of the 1990s.", Ranked #2 on Spin's List of the `20 Best Albums of '95.', 5 stars out of 5 -- "It's an album of contradictions, at once restless an soothing, profane and profound....His experiments here still glow with mystery and magic.", "...R&B for the head, MAXINQUAYE is engrossing music collage art that bumps, grinds, and simmers....singer Martine's sly phrasing--is mind-bending..." - Rating: A, "...street beats and turntable scratching with guitars, dub bass, industrial noise and other elements....cool subdued music....This is among the best albums of the year...", 8 - Very Good - "...Imagine the cracked-out vibe of vintage Schoolly D generated by a black British outcast who loves Billie Holiday and PJ Harvey as much as he digs sluggish beats and singsong melodies....Their attitude is mean-spirited, but much of the aggression is directed inward...", Included on Jon Pareles' list of the Top 10 Albums of '95 - "...the first album-length masterpiece of trip-hop...", 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Tricky proves himself to be more challenging and eclectic than his peers, leapfrogging from...thick tribal beats to...sub-metal thrash...amid the more typical ambient dub....a highly inventive and intoxicating collection."
