Becoming X

Tricky and Portishead may have secured a trip-hop niche in pop, but Sneaker Pimps have the potential to go mainstream. Whether massaging the senses with smooth, seductive grooves or spacing out in the beat-happy jungle of drum-and-bass, Sneaker Pimps manage to be ominously spooky on Becoming X without indulging in Tricky’s gothic pretension and hypnotic without lapsing into Portishead’s one-note gloom.