"Safe Trip Home," like her previous two albums, is full of pleasant songs, marked by Dido's crystalline voice. Although they are all solid tracks only a few actually stand out.
It's easy to listen to Dido's records. Rarely will you find yourself annoyed by any of the tracks. Yet nearly all of them lack the hooks necessary to make them memorable. She writes and performs nice music, but unfortunately it's mostly background music.
In fact, most of the highlights on "Safe Trip Home" come from a variety of superstar collaborators, including Mick Fleetwood, ?uestlove, Citizen Cope, Jon Brion, Brian Eno, David Campbell and Matt Chamberlain.
The first four tracks - also four of the album's best - are a virtual who's who of drumming. Chamberlain kicks it off with one of his signature beats that seems to bridge the gap between a drum machine and live drumming on "Don't Believe In Love."
Chamberlain is one of the most prominent session drummers in modern music and has played on more than 200 albums, including work with Tori Amos, David Bowie, John Mayer and Kanye West. In the early 1990s he was even a short-time member of Pearl Jam before that band hit it big.
The guy can drum.He does so on three of the tracks, including "It Comes and It Goes" and "Let's Do The Things We Normally Do."
Yet there are other stellar drummers in the mix as well. ?uestlove, the man behind the rhythm of The Roots, adds a groovy beat to "Never Want To Say It's Love" as Dido chimes in with an omnichord. It's also one of the many tracks to feature producer Jon Brion's lush string and brass arrangements.
However it's David Campbell (Beck's dad) who provides strings for "Grafton Street," the best song on the album. It's obvious a lot of people put a effort into this track. Anchoring the song is a steady beat by drumming legend Mick Fleetwood. Yet, as the song progresses, other players add different dimensions (programming by Sister Bliss, Brian Eno's signature ambience), building it layer by layer into a wall of beautiful sound.
Although the guests overshadow Dido at times, she shines through on "Grafton Street," playing keyboards, bells and a pretty little recorder melody.
The only track that rivals "Grafton Street" is "Burnin Love," a collaboration with Citizen Cope (Clarence Greenwood), who sings and plays both guitar and drums. With Greenwood co-writing the track, he gives Dido something she seems to have a hard time finding: a hook. His simple, acoustic guitar riff is the catchiest thing on this album.
Dido's lyrics, like her music, are often competent and solid but not particularly engaging. This track is an exception as she sings, "Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons / and everybody's stood behind the men behind the wire / there's a fight to love, a fight to have, your bed's a battlefield and back / and all of this will just be stripped away."
Otherwise "Safe Trip Home is fairly uninteresting. "Northern Skies" has potential but it wears out its welcome around three minutes and unbelievably continues for another six minutes. Sadly it took five years for this mediocre effort.
It's easy to listen to Dido's records. Rarely will you find yourself annoyed by any of the tracks. Yet nearly all of them lack the hooks necessary to make them memorable. She writes and performs nice music, but unfortunately it's mostly background music.
In fact, most of the highlights on "Safe Trip Home" come from a variety of superstar collaborators, including Mick Fleetwood, ?uestlove, Citizen Cope, Jon Brion, Brian Eno, David Campbell and Matt Chamberlain.
The first four tracks - also four of the album's best - are a virtual who's who of drumming. Chamberlain kicks it off with one of his signature beats that seems to bridge the gap between a drum machine and live drumming on "Don't Believe In Love."
Chamberlain is one of the most prominent session drummers in modern music and has played on more than 200 albums, including work with Tori Amos, David Bowie, John Mayer and Kanye West. In the early 1990s he was even a short-time member of Pearl Jam before that band hit it big.
The guy can drum.He does so on three of the tracks, including "It Comes and It Goes" and "Let's Do The Things We Normally Do."
Yet there are other stellar drummers in the mix as well. ?uestlove, the man behind the rhythm of The Roots, adds a groovy beat to "Never Want To Say It's Love" as Dido chimes in with an omnichord. It's also one of the many tracks to feature producer Jon Brion's lush string and brass arrangements.
However it's David Campbell (Beck's dad) who provides strings for "Grafton Street," the best song on the album. It's obvious a lot of people put a effort into this track. Anchoring the song is a steady beat by drumming legend Mick Fleetwood. Yet, as the song progresses, other players add different dimensions (programming by Sister Bliss, Brian Eno's signature ambience), building it layer by layer into a wall of beautiful sound.
Although the guests overshadow Dido at times, she shines through on "Grafton Street," playing keyboards, bells and a pretty little recorder melody.
The only track that rivals "Grafton Street" is "Burnin Love," a collaboration with Citizen Cope (Clarence Greenwood), who sings and plays both guitar and drums. With Greenwood co-writing the track, he gives Dido something she seems to have a hard time finding: a hook. His simple, acoustic guitar riff is the catchiest thing on this album.
Dido's lyrics, like her music, are often competent and solid but not particularly engaging. This track is an exception as she sings, "Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons / and everybody's stood behind the men behind the wire / there's a fight to love, a fight to have, your bed's a battlefield and back / and all of this will just be stripped away."
Otherwise "Safe Trip Home is fairly uninteresting. "Northern Skies" has potential but it wears out its welcome around three minutes and unbelievably continues for another six minutes. Sadly it took five years for this mediocre effort.