Even at the height of their popularity in the late 1990s and early 00s, it was always difficult to imagine anyone getting worked up over Thievery Corporation. A watery cocktail of cul de sac genres like downtempo, lounge, and "world music" (more on that in a second), the Washington D.C. duo's output has long worn its own inoffensiveness as a badge. If the fact that the press release for this album ledes with a quote touting them as "quintessential ambassadors of the sophisticated global 'downbeat generation'" doesn't put you on the scent of their relentless dedication to tastefulness, witness 2007's cover album, , whose patently box-ticking tracklist included re-workings of songs by Sarah McLachlan, the Doors, and Astrud Gilberto. Eclectic! Cover albums and mixes aside, is the pair's fifth studio album, and finds them once again failing to make anything but the most minute adjustments to the polite groove that is their stock, trade and-- in 2009-- monopoly. These guys have always been producers before songwriters, and, as such, their aesthetic reveals itself not through what they do, but rather, how they do it. Every broody atmosphere pad here is instructively reverbed, every rhythm perfectly loping, every whooshy sound effect painstakingly placed, every bluesy guitar curl appropriately perky, every edge sanded off, each fleck of grit, gristle and emotion dutifully rubbed out and dispensed with. With few exceptions, is both perfect and perfectly boring. Queen believed they were put on this earth to rock you; Thievery Corporation appear to have similar goals vis-à-vis anaesthetizing you.