Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Stay
2. Antimatter
3. Ice Pick
4. Car Crash
5. Dear God
6. How High
7. What Is Wrong
8. Hollow
9. Moody
10. Wait For God
11. Where I'm From
12. The Love Cats
13. Search Survive

Disc 2:

1. Vulnerable Movie
2. Trickey - Antimatter - Jimmy & T Remix
3. Radagon & Tricky - Receive Us
4. Tricky - You Don't Wanna (Live In Rome)
5. Photo Gallery

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53452 in Music
• Released on: 2003-05-19
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: CD+DVD

Amazon.co.uk Review
Vulnerable, Tricky's seventh long player, is being touted as a "return to form". This is presumably because of the decidedly lukewarm responses that greeted recent LPs like Blowback and Angels With Dirty Faces. The main problem of course is that everyone expects England's most blunted auteur to come up with something as mind-blowingly zeitgeist-capturing as his debut Maxinquaye. Face it kids: it ain't gonna happen. The album lists from side to side in that inimitably Tricky-esque way, zig-zagging through dark, surrealist dreamscapes and catchy pop hooks and offering plenty of trademark unhinged beats and hard-core thrash-outs (yes, he still has a thing for nu-metal) along the way. His distinctive verbal entropy is all over the album--perhaps too much--but is balanced by the equally omni-present chanteuse Costanza. Aside from Tricky's own varied pieces, there are two covers: an excellently sexual reworking of The Cure's "Love Cats" and a less inspiring version of XTC's "Dear God". Not exactly a "return to form", or anything close to Maxinquaye, but still a solid and inventive album that stands up on its own merits. --Paul Sullivan

CD Description
Seventh album from former trip-hop sensation and ex-member of Massive Attack. Following an erratic and uncompromising career path, Tricky has had many shifts of direction. This new album, his second for Epitaph subsidiary Anti, stays more in the vein of 2001's 'Blowback', though its mixture of hip-hop, rock, dub, ragga and electronics is even more diverse.

Customer Reviews

joe love's review
For listeners familiar with Tricky's past works, Vulnerable seems a stark contrast to the dark, warped and distorted sounds that prevail over works like Pre-Millenium Tension and Angels with Dirty Faces.
Where those previous albums are a collection of disjointed beats and moods, Vulnerable features guitar driven tunes, and more complete, almost radio-friendly(!) songs, something that makes it more similar to
Maxinquaye.
Songs such as 'Hollow', a tear jerker in the vein of 'makes me wanna die' on P.M.T, and 'Stay' are examples of this.
The incredible Martina Topley Bird has departed to focus on her solo project, leaving an opening for Costanza, a female vocalist who, although not as inspirational and personable as Martina, compliments Tricky's spoken words with a voice that is at times strong and rousing, and at others breathy and delicate.
While I would never call a Tricky album uplifting, this is the brightest sounding one to date.
It will probably grow on me, and personally I don't think Tricky can go wrong, but in my opinion Maxinquaye is the superior album.

Tricky off on another tangent
Vulnerable is yet another incarnation of the multi-faced artist, Tricky. The content is as new as the tandem format of CD and DVD suggests with perhaps just the languishing lyrics a suitable link between past and present. Pre-millennium Tension boasted a recording time of weeks and the publicity spoke of the artist’s illness and energy in equal measure. Hardly the most appealing of beginnings but the product was superb - rushed but infused with the energy promised. Vulnerable has no such PR hype but all the quality. The industrial beats of the textured background welcome Tricky back but the veil of blackness that covered Pre-millennium and Angels With Dirty Faces has been drawn back. Beneath is a rawness and purity that draws the audience further into the depths of his poetry. It is this poetry that suffuses past work but dominates here with the music a multi-layered backdrop only occasionally brought to the fore.

I have enjoyed Tricky for his diversity and this new work is in keeping with the constant tangents he explores. When asked which album to start with, if new to his music, there is no beginning and on many levels no development. In Vulnerable he has taken yet another new path but with a success that will guarantee it longevity well beyond the less well crafted Blowback. Is there value in the DVD part to the package? Personally I am not bothered. I admire and would immerse myself in the music and therefore find any extras to be what they are….a bonus. But if you need an add-on reason to buy Vulnerable then perhaps this is not the album or artist to select – at least not whilst Kylie is still giving away posters. The homage to the Cure is excellent and is a cooling reminder of what a cover version should be.

A return to form -- Trip Hop is dead. Long live trip hop.
Tricky was always the poor relation to Massive Attack in my opinion, but with this album, Tricky has moved his sound on and kept it relevent, whereas MA's last two albums have lost themselves in a fug of dark beats and soulless navel-gazing - a great shame.

Tricky's latest has a greater "live instruments" sound to it. There is still plenty of experimental electronica, including, of all things, a sample from a classic Bollywood funk tune ("dum maaro dum") on the final track! But the sound is typically dark and multi-layered. Tricky's brooding, deep voice adds another dimension to the mainly female vocal-led tracks.

This may not be the best album you hear all year, but it's well worth a listen. I would award it 3.5 stars if I could, but I give it the benefit of the doubt. Tricky's best since Maxinquaye.