Safe Trip Home - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
(Amazon.co.uk Review) Safe Trip Home, the third album from singer-songwriter Dido, sees the chanteuse cook up a slightly different ambience than on previous albums No Angel (1999) and Life for Rent (2003). Though her signature elements remain in place--the limited, slightly cracked falsetto; the dreamy, comforting trip-hop vibe--there seems to be an extra density to Safe Trip Home, doubtless provoked by the loss of her father in 2006. The added weight is predominantly in the lyrics, which tend to focus on loss and heartache, but there's extra detail and depth in the musicianship too, since Dido has been busy honing her skills as a multi-instrumentalist. Despite the denser themes, the music still drifts by in classic Dido style, moving smoothly through the insouciant “Don't Believe in Love", the aptly titled “Quiet Times", and “Never Want to Say It's Love", before arriving at the somber-yet-elegant six-minute standout “Grafton Street", co-written with Brian Eno and featuring Mick Fleetwood on drums. The rest of the album unfurls in similarly sophicticated fashion, featuring the folkish “Look No Further", the upbeat “Us 2 Little Gods", and a nine-minute poetic closer called “Northern Skies". Put simply, Safe Trip Home is Dido in superlative form. --Danny McKenna

Album Description
This package includes 4 Dido postcards.

Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Hauntingly beautiful and emotional. November 18, 2008
37 out of 45 found this review helpful

Dido's previous two albums, "No Angel" (1999) and "Life For Rent" (2003), sold an astonishing 21 million copies in total.
Only her third album in nine years, "Safe Trip Home" somehow distils the essence of Dido even further.
Dido has been taking some time to mature, both musically and emotionally.
Where "Life For Rent" was a series of snapshots from the life of a newly single girl , "Safe Trip Home" is overwhelmingly coloured by the death at the end of 2006 of her father.
The renowned producer Jon Brion (who has worked extensively with Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright), and her brother and long-time collaborator co-producer Rollo Armstrong know how to make the most of a distinctive vocal talent.
On first acquaintance, it is almost sombre, such is the understatement of her arrangements.
She has reined back on the electronics, with more real instrumentation. Even with a band playing silkily syncopated grooves, often underpinned by lush orchestration, the overall effect is one of quiet stillness.
Her musical palette may have embraced the soft sounds of ambient electronics and the flowing melodiousness of folk, but she has a real gift for conveying simple, emotional truth with deceptively artful songs and the touching purity of her gentle, aching vocals.
Her songs are about everyday experiences and relationships. These mostly deal with loss: of lovers, of time, of a more hopeful younger self, and also of Dido's father, who died in 2006.
It's potentially affecting stuff, and the gentleness of the production - several songs sound as though they were recorded by candlelight - heightens the atmosphere of desolation and fragility.
The album, as you'd expect, stays to her tried and tested formula of minimalism, ennui and trademark pathos - from the opening emptiness of "Don't Believe In Love" to the brooding closer of "Northern Skies" - driven by a club-heavy bass line, and adorned with bubbly keyboard trills - there's barely a chink of smiling light to be found in the dark opus.
The outstanding song of the album is the piercingly beautiful, Celtic-flavoured "Grafton Street", a six-minute hymn to loss co-written with Brian Eno and featuring Mick Fleetwood on drums. Listen to it once and it will catch at your heart as a wrenching lament for a lover who will not return.
The deceptively relaxed 'Burnin' Love' sets Dido's delicate tones against the warm, crackling vocal of Citizen Cope, a Brooklyn-based guitarist, DJ and keyboard player, bringing the best out of an affecting melody.
On "Look No Further", she lays out the credentials that have endeared her to so many - spurning the high life that's surely within her grasp, she conjures a classically-cushioned, mellow beat-driven vision of hearth and home.
Most affecting is "Let's Do The Things We Normally Do", "from your rebel songs sung out of tune, so my hand held longer than you need to".
It is simply as fond as farewells can get.
Dido plays keyboards, drums and/or guitar on most of the tracks.
My favourite tracks: "Let's Do The Things We Normally Do", "Burnin' Love", "Grafton Street", and "Northern Skies", co-written with Rollo.

Life for Rent
No Angel

2 out of 5 stars

I REALLY wanted to like this album November 20, 2008
28 out of 39 found this review helpful

Like many Dido fans, I had been waiting and waiting for the third album. I loved her first two albums. However, I am disappointed. When I heard the single "Don't Believe in Love" I thought perhaps they had simply not chosen an appropriate song, but that is actually one of the more fast-tempo songs in the album. The only two songs that stick in my mind at all are "Grafton Street" and "It Comes And It Goes". The rest all sort of meld together as very minimalist instrumentally and similar-sounding. If you like really relaxing songs with little melodic variation, like to hear Dido's voice and try to interpret the lyrics, and little instrumental interference, you will probably like this album. For me, and probably many people who loved her last albums and the melodic richness, it is...for lack of a better word, boring. I really really wanted to like this album, and have more songs to listen to over and over again in my stereo, but even the two songs that stand out in this album will probably not be played very often. I still love Dido, I know she probably put a lot of her soul into this album, but I just cannot say I like it -

For the people who loved most of her old songs (particularly Hunter, Here With Me, Sand In My Shoes, This Land Is Mine, Life For Rent, White Flag, I'm No Angel, Don't Think Of Me, All You Want) - LISTEN to all the songs first before buying - hear the full versions first if you can, because the tempo-increase that you expect to come after the 30 second preview does not come.

3 out of 5 stars

We waited and waited and then.... November 21, 2008
21 out of 28 found this review helpful

Never having been a big fan personally of down tempo melodic female artists sitting on a stool with long hair and a guitar singing about lost love and other sadness I was knocked off my feet with Dido's appearance.

I first heard of in Stan by Eminem where her "Thank You" was a part ... what a melodic almost godly voice ... after that I was hooked and loved both her two previous albums to an extend I still frequently listen to them on my Ipod on the plane or in the car. Then years of waiting followed and for the first time in a long time I visited the music stores in London and Copenhagen to check if the new album was out...

Now it is finally out and I feel a slightly flat feeling. Hard to sum the experience so far up other than it is ok but leaves a feeling of being a non-event. Her voice is still beautiful but the tunes are forgettable mostly and too low beat even by Dido standards. Where the previous material cleverly mixed the slow passages with slightly more upbeat ones it seems in this album that this variation has been left out. The sound is pleasant alright but a bit stale for lack of a better word.

I acknowledge my long waiting and high expectations might have a strong effect on my disappointment and I thus opt to rate the album with 3 Stars. I see far too many reviewers tempted to make their point stronger by excessive use of 1 and 5 Stars.. In my mind very few movies, books or music albums deserve either.

All other said it is still pleasant listening and had it been a debut album by another artist it would be very decent. No single title stands out and it is probably best listened to in its entirety before sleep. No need to send out video's and singles for sure.

For an avid Dido listener this is a far cry from meeting the very high standards she herself set in album 1 and 2.

2 out of 5 stars

Terribly Disappointing November 21, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

I am a huge Dido fan and have anxiously awaited the release of Safe Trip Home. Unfortunately, Dido has departed from what made her such an interesting artist and settled on a sound that fails to distinguish her from any other artist on pop lite radio.

Her first two albums artfully used electronica to create an atmostphere appropriate to her themes of heartbreak and disaffectation. Even when the lyrics weren't particularly riveting, the music infused the songs with an urgency or pulse that, years later, still lends them a modern sound.

With Safe Trip Home, Dido has removed most of the electronica and relies upon a much more organic sound. While it's nice to see artists branch out from tried-and-true formulas, the more organic nature of this album strips Dido's music of its signature sound. Dido's voice is lovely throughout the album, but nothing stands out about any of these songs.

Moreover, while her songs have always been tinged with, if not celebratory of, sadness, removing the intriguing musical atmosphere gives the listener no reason to care. Not a single song is upbeat or uptempo, causing one brooding song to simply roll into the next. Indeed, I found myself checking my CD player several times to see if I was still listening to the same song or if a new one had begun.

I can only recommend this album to true fans and I suspect even many of those will be disappointed. What a shame, as there is so much talent here.

5 out of 5 stars

I listen to heavy metal... November 19, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful

and the harder the better. So the argument that it is "too" light is not a rating. This is an awesome recording by Dido. She has not done anything in a while and I've been waiting. She is an amazing singer songwriter, and woman. So five stars and no less for this beautiful, haunting, emotional, to the core of our being.. music.

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