Recorded at Grove Studios, Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Platinum Island Studios, New York, New York.

Personnel: Tricky (vocals, harmonica); Rock Smith (vocals, background vocals); Patrice Chevalier (guitar); Pat McManus (violin, piano); John Tonks (drums).

Audio Mixers: Ian Caple; Tricky.

Recording information: Grove Studios, Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Platinum Island Studios, NY.

Photographer: Stephane Sednaoui.

Maxinquaye was an unexpected hit in England, launching a wave of similar-sounding artists, who incorporated Tricky's innovations into safer pop territory. Tricky responded by travelling to Jamaica to record Pre-Millennium Tension, a nervy, claustrophobic record that thrives in its own paranoia. Scaling back the clattering hooks of Maxinquaye and slowing the beat down, Tricky has created a hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling procession of menacing sounds and disembodied lyrical threats. Its tone is set by the backward guitar loops of "Vent," and continued through the shifting "Christiansands," and the tense, lyrically dense "Tricky Kid," easily Tricky's best straight rap to date. Occasionally, the gloom is broken, such as when the shimmering piano chords of "Makes Me Want to Die" ring out, but nearly as often, it becomes bogged down in its own murk, as in the long ragga rant "Ghetto Youth." While the lyrics are often quite effective in conveying dope-addled paranoia, what ties the album together is its layered rhythms and soundscapes. Though it might not sound that way immediately, Pre-Millennium Tension is as much Tricky reaching back to his hardcore rap roots as it is a sonic exploration. As such, it stands as a transition record for Tricky, but its overall effect is only slightly less powerful than Maxinquaye or Nearly God. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Urbane and despairing, this trip-hop king's second album under his own name is a genuine fin-de-siecle concoction. Apocalyptic messages are projected over layers of gleaming noises and libidinous rhythms that lurk underneath the surface like secret cities. Although his songs are full of sinister, futuristic overtones, Tricky refuses to be cornered as a messianic spokesperson. No longer working under the moniker "Nearly God," and discontented with the role of anonymous auteur, he's the "Tricky Kid": simultaneously celebrating and bemoaning the musician-as-god paradigm.

Tricky continues to weave narratives from a variety of standpoints--everyone from the ghetto-dweller to the biggest superstar is given a voice on this album. Martina Topley Bird, a long-time Tricky accomplice, lends her sultry voice to several tracks, giving them the sophisticated, continental ambience of Portishead. No matter who is doing the talking, these songs are delivered with a cool detachment. PRE-MILLENNIUM TENSION is infallibly hip: an apotheosis of urban grace.