by Dean Carlson

Intended to act as a retrospective for his globetrotting superstar DJ appearances, Paul Oakenfold's Travelling is oddly domestic. He's up to his usual standards, lulling the listener into the expected pensive trance, but after his Global Underground and Another World efforts, the old tricks are quickly running their course. There's the international tokenism of Israel's Lyric or Canada's Max Graham over here. The lazy vomiting of inevitable hits ("Bullet in the Gun 2000," "Doom's Night," "Silence") over there. Worst of all, his soul is nowhere to be seen the whole time. Oakenfold acts like a spinning Mafia don when almost the entire Perfecto roster is thrust forward as if its songs weren't desperate for enough attention already. Which makes Travelling sluggish, patronizing stuff. He may sell a gabillion records with every cobbled-together compilation, but this is just plain old nepotism.