2008 is shaping up as the Year Bristol Bounced Back. Earlier this year, the city's trip-hop lords Portishead released the superb album Third. Now comes the first record in five years from Tricky, who helped codify the foreboding Bristol sound along with Portishead and Massive Attack in the mid-Nineties. Tricky's hometown is much on his mind: The album title refers to the hardscrabble hood where he grew up, and he has called the album a homage to the Brit pop of his youth. You can hear the influence of the Specials in "Council Estate" — a manic, ska-flavored party thumper spattered with muddy digital effects. But it's variety that makes this Tricky's best since his 1995 debut, Maxinquaye. There's lurching cocktail-lounge blues ("Puppy Toy"); dancehall-style toasting ("Bacative"); even a garage-rock Kylie Minogue cover ("Slow"). Dave "Switch" Taylor (M.I.A.) lent a production hand, but this is unmistakably a Tricky record, from the thick, sonic grime to the brooding lyrics. And on "Joseph," Tricky delivers some well-earned gloating: "They want to see me crawl/But I would rather fly."