It has been 11 years since Enigma debuted with an album of chanting monks, panting women and chilled beats. The monks are gone and by and large, “Voyageur,” despite the title, traverses well-known terrain with trip-hop beats, filtered voices and over-reaching hooks. The dance anthem “Boum-Boum” and the ersatz Duran Duran chorus of “Look of Today” succeed at a generic, overwrought pop, while other songs, like “Following the Sun,” attain an infectious, psychedelic aroma. Producer Michael Cretu, who is Enigma, launches some surreal sound designs, including the title track that takes ’60s discotheque music and distorts it through time. But the often seductive rhythms and imagistic moods are undermined by a cut-and-paste superficiality. “Voyageur” sounds like it was constructed from a template rather than newly conceived.—JD
