The idea that Morcheeba might be a band for the
ages is vaguely insulting; the group's music wasn't terribly essential to begin
with. Yet here's another collection of lazy New Age bromides and upscale Muzak
atmospheres hell-bent on dragging trip-hop's corpse into the 21st century. A
series of low-rent vocalists slouch through Paul and Ross Godfrey's predictable
backdrops (defanged strings, genteel scratching), beginning with the shockingly
obvious "Enjoy The Ride," on which Judie Tzuke enjoins us to just, like, enjoy
life and stuff. This isn't an album, it's an office poster, complete with platitudes
masquerading as serene wisdom. "One Love Karma" is worse yet: Korean-American
rapper Cool Calm Pete sings the title with no shame. If nothing else,
Morcheeba's existence points out everything Air does right—both are calm
and inoffensive enough to serve as dinner music, but only one aspires to more.
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