Send "DJ Shadow " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Disliking things is easier than liking them. This digital age phenomenon isn’t exactly a new discovery, but it does feel much more prominent in the age of unfiltered opinion sharing and thought diarrhea that is message boards and user reviews. I’m not immune from this, but when it comes to certain albums I can sometimes sense that it will be one of those releases for which everything is in doubt. The Less You Know, the Better is easily one of those albums. Not only does it carry the tried and true “like it or not, we’re going to be comparing this to your past work” stigma, not only is it fighting against the “formerly world-changing artist now struggling to stand out from the pack” dilemma, but The Less You Know is also fighting against the fact that the music related to it leading up to its release just wasn’t that interesting on its own merits.Anyone with a finger on the pulse of Top Whatever lists and the mid-‘90s production/turntablism scene is aware of Shadow’s debut, Endtroducing, and the recent compilation of like-minded tracks 4-Track Era. The music from that era of his career undoubtedly stands mountainous as its own thing, something it’s really not fair to expect a musician to repeat forever, whether other, previous wunderkinds were, for a time, able to sustain their amazingness or not. But we did get to see Shadow try in 1998 when he released Private Press, and this was also when he began to struggle against that stigma of comparison. The music was good—maybe (probably) even great—but it wasn’t Endtroducing. How unfair of him to do that to us, right? Next was The Outsider, about which the less said the better, probably. The album has its merits, but it often felt more novelty than album proper. For all those who ever wondered what it might sound like to hear Shadow produce for rappers, they got their answer that it wasn’t the mind-blowing response they’d been expecting. And so the second stigma came into the play, the question of whether or not Shadow was even that good anymore. Singles preceding this album’s release only further confused matters, especially “I Gotta Rokk”, which is about as unexciting a mashup of hard rock guitars and house beats you could possibly imagine. All of which is why it feels relieving to type these next few words: for the most part, The Less You Know is a return to form for Shadow, his best work since Private Press and, most importantly, fun to listen to....full text |
| Spin |
| He does whatever he wants, this guy. Though nowhere near as antagonistic as 2006's hyphy-saturated The Outsider, DJ Shadow's fourth album still defies expectations, dabbling freely in heavy-metal riffage ("Border Crossing," "I Gotta Rokk"), sun-kissed acoustic reverie ("I Been Trying"), and Killers-style Brit-rock (the Tom Vek–assisted "Warning Call"). Highlights: Afrikan Boy cameos on a manic, infectious "I'm Excited," while the lovely "Redeemer" comes closest to acknowledging the ambient-turntablist grandeur that made Shadow famous. But the churning poetic dirge "Give Me Back the Nights" screams "go away," almost literally. The Less You Know, the Better is equal parts frustrating and admirable; as the title suggests, don't bother looking for Shadow oversharing on Twitter....full text |
| Independent |
| The title could be an unwitting subtext about the legal minefield of sampling: already, DJ Shadow has had to pull a lead-off EP track from this album because of sample-clearance problems, and the remaining tracks, in general, seem to offer more guarded approaches to the sample-collaging process than on his previous albums. There's a pronounced shortfall of his usual joyous eclecticism here, with many pieces settling for basic repetitive sequences; some sound like little more than extended intros. "Enemy Lines" and "I Gotta Rock" are plodding guitar riffs in Queens of the Stone Age robot-rock manner; "Sad and Lonely" and "Redeemed" are exercises in prog-folk, and "Run for Your Life" a genial bout of scurrying wah-wah funk. Despite its risky title, "Tedium" is actually one of the more intriguing pieces, a spookily atmospheric dub throb....full text |
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