Chimpomatic

Knowle West Boy kicks off with Puppy Toy, a bluesy bar-room brawl being played out late at night; Bacative sounds like a Maxinquaye outtake, C'mon Baby's a stomp-rock and Council Estate is the sort of song that only Tricky can pull off - 2:39 of what's basically a single riff packed with furious drums that can barely contain their excitement at getting to pull off another roll, vocals dropping into dub echo chambers, Rage Against The Machine-style distortion that all stops as suddenly as it starts. Throughout this great album there are harmonicas floating over ragga-lines, smokey female voices, keyboard washes, rock guitars, heavy heavy beats - and a Kylie cover thrown in for the fun of it.

There's so much going on in this album it puts most other recent records to shame - it's like Tricky has absorbed everything that's great about British music and distilled it here, leaping around without worrying about "confusing his audience" or "not being coherent" or any of that marketing crapola that blands out so much of focus grouped modern culture. It's hyperactive without being ADD - there's so much attention to detail here, so much love of the sheer joy of making music, that it's a totally infectious, convincing project.

It's like he's made a great mixtape using only Tricky songs. He so generous with singing duties, employing so many different vocalists (especially women) that it's easy to keep checking your iPod to make sure it hasn't slipped into shuffle after a few tracks.

Like Beck's new one Modern Guilt (released on the same day), it's a return to form that makes you remember why you thought he was so great in the first place (and makes you think you might have been missing out in the interim).