DJ Shadow - The Less You Know The Better

DJ Shadow - The Less You Know The Better
Genre: Electronica/Hip Hop
Rating: 4/10

DJ Shadow first exploded onto the scene way back in the 1996 when he released his record breaking critically acclaimed debut Endtroducing. Endtroducing made its way into the record books as it was the first album to be made entirely of samples and cemented DJ Shadow's reputation as a master DJ. Since then Shadow has been gradually gone about releasing albums taking time out to work as a producer on many other bands works. Five years on for his controversial genre bending 2006 The Outsider comes his latest offering The Less You Know The Better.

Shadow's earlier material was built heavily on crazy drum loops and a mish mash of samples to produce ambient downbeat instrumental hip hop that was oddly as engrossing and thought provoking as it was danceable. In recent years Shadow has distanced himself from this sound quite significantly instead favouring a more eclectic pallet drawing inspiration from rock, blues, spoken word and soul as well as hip hop. This new style was not met with the same praise as his earlier work as many struggled with 2006's Outsider album finding it too jumbled to work as a coherent album. Unfortunately The Less You Know The Better suffers from similar flaws. Whilst many may criticise his later work in my opinion it is only natural for an artist to move away from their original sound otherwise their whole creative output would slowly become stale and tired. The problem here is not that Shadow has changed his style so much as he has over reached failing to even approach besting his previous efforts. The music on display through the record is very varied and draws from all sorts of scenes and genres some of which Shadow seems to master whilst others seem a bit limp and lifeless. Not all of the album is bad, "Border Crossing" for example see's Shadow scratch away underneath heavy metal guitar lines whilst "Stay The Course" see's Shadow produce a beautifully restrained mixture of Funk Soul and Hip Hop. However these highlights are few and far between and there is an awful lot of filler that weighs the record down. Tracks like "Give Me Back The Nights" offer nothing to the listener and just serve to drag the album out longer. The overall flow is again inconsistent and the whole thing feels much like an over complicated experiment.

Overall this is not DJ Shadow at his best. Whilst it is admirable and refreshing to see a DJ willing to experiment and push himself beyond his normal sound you can't help but feel that Shadow is out of his depth and failing to play to his strengths. Avoid if possible.

Download: "Border Crossing" "Stay The Course"