100th Window
Massive Attack
(EMI)
Reported by Bing Tuesday, February 18 2003
Most reviews of 100th Window are focussing on the fact that there is only one band member left from the original group, or that the entire album was recorded and then scrapped in favour of re-recording, or on subsequent blown out release dates. But as soon as you put this CD into your stereo all that bullshit, media hype and anything else not centered around the actual music itself will fade into insignificance.
The deep, dark trippy world of Robert Del Naja is, simply stated, a jaw dropping place to visit. Where Massive Attacks last album Mezzanine swam so far down in the deep and nasty darkness it may as well have changed it?s name to an unpronounceable low growling noise, 100th Window somehow manages to keep the same mood without visiting the same territory. It still sounds like a Massive Attack album, but it is far from a re-hash of past ideas.
Listening to Mezzanine was like sitting in a small, claustrophobic, smoke filled room with a very low roof. Listening to 100th Window is a very similar experience to watching a thunderstorm in the distance slowly roll towards you in the eerie twilight of dusk or dawn. This is the essential difference between the two, the new album has a sense of space within the sound that was purposefully choked last time around ? this time there is room to breathe.
Del Naja?s sultry, smokey, bottle of scotch per day vocals are as nasty as ever. Half spoken word and half rap, he has without doubt one of the most unique voices in contemporary music. A complete juxtaposition to this is Sinead O?Connor singing on three tracks and providing the Sun on the LP. Her haunting voice peeping from behind the clouds almost lulls the listener into believing momentarily that the music is about to lighten up ? it doesn?t.
One of the best things about Massive Attack is the actual sounds they use to create their songs. If you listen carefully there are literally thousands of perfectly tweaked snippets of audio that feel like you have never heard anything like them before. Never heard a guitar like that, never a violin like that, never a harp like that and heaps more that you can?t even figure out what kind of instrument they were made on at all!
Mark my words, this will be one of the albums of the year.
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