The new Massive Attack album review. Sounds like it will be a decent album...
Album is due out Feb. 11.
Link
ALBUM REVIEW - 100th Window
01/24/2003
By Ken Micallef
When Massive Attack blew out of Bristol with 1991's Blue Lines, the trio innovated a genre they would eventually disown: trip hop. Blue Lines was a soaring soul epic of mammoth looped grooves, dub infusion, and "hallelujah chorus" vocals. The imitators piled on. After the disappointing Protection album, MA picked up the pieces, adding heavy guitar crunch and fuzz-toned electronica for the 1998 comeback Mezzanine, which featured bizarre effects against glorious vocal tracks that accentuated MA?s core sound. Now down to two original members and a producer, 100th Window marks the ongoing evolution of Massive Attack.
Written and produced by 3D (Robert Del Naja) and Mezzanine co-producer Neil Davidge, 100th Window sounds like the work of one mind. With Grant "Daddy Gee" Marshall off tending his new child, 100th Window succumbs to 3D?s eerie, stoner vision and psychedelic electronica. Future Sound Of London tread similar ground with 2002?s The Isness, but with nowhere near 100th Window?s otherworldly detachment, beauty, and power. The songs flow from ghostly electronica to Middle Eastern big beat, from sun-flecked wonder to Pink Floyd-ish slo-mo stillness. Is this Mezzanine lite? In a way, yes. There is nothing here as gripping as "Angel," "Risingson," or "Inertia Creeps." Womblike and seductive, this is make-out music for hibernating astronauts.
You can also hear 3D stretching back for the inspiration of Blue Lines. On "A Prayer For England" he again samples jazz-rock drummer Billy Cobham?s Spectrum, but instead of a groove, he steals only a fragment of synth overload, producing the song?s recurring looped tones. Sinead O?Connor's vocals on three tracks (3D and Horace Andy handle the rest) only furthers the album's bare mood and emotional aloofness. 100th Window is beautiful and soothing, but so is window dressing. 100th Window is ambient music for flotation tank reverie, for dreaming on long summer days, for maintaining a cold heart in the dead of winter.
Album is due out Feb. 11.
Link
ALBUM REVIEW - 100th Window
01/24/2003
By Ken Micallef
When Massive Attack blew out of Bristol with 1991's Blue Lines, the trio innovated a genre they would eventually disown: trip hop. Blue Lines was a soaring soul epic of mammoth looped grooves, dub infusion, and "hallelujah chorus" vocals. The imitators piled on. After the disappointing Protection album, MA picked up the pieces, adding heavy guitar crunch and fuzz-toned electronica for the 1998 comeback Mezzanine, which featured bizarre effects against glorious vocal tracks that accentuated MA?s core sound. Now down to two original members and a producer, 100th Window marks the ongoing evolution of Massive Attack.
Written and produced by 3D (Robert Del Naja) and Mezzanine co-producer Neil Davidge, 100th Window sounds like the work of one mind. With Grant "Daddy Gee" Marshall off tending his new child, 100th Window succumbs to 3D?s eerie, stoner vision and psychedelic electronica. Future Sound Of London tread similar ground with 2002?s The Isness, but with nowhere near 100th Window?s otherworldly detachment, beauty, and power. The songs flow from ghostly electronica to Middle Eastern big beat, from sun-flecked wonder to Pink Floyd-ish slo-mo stillness. Is this Mezzanine lite? In a way, yes. There is nothing here as gripping as "Angel," "Risingson," or "Inertia Creeps." Womblike and seductive, this is make-out music for hibernating astronauts.
You can also hear 3D stretching back for the inspiration of Blue Lines. On "A Prayer For England" he again samples jazz-rock drummer Billy Cobham?s Spectrum, but instead of a groove, he steals only a fragment of synth overload, producing the song?s recurring looped tones. Sinead O?Connor's vocals on three tracks (3D and Horace Andy handle the rest) only furthers the album's bare mood and emotional aloofness. 100th Window is beautiful and soothing, but so is window dressing. 100th Window is ambient music for flotation tank reverie, for dreaming on long summer days, for maintaining a cold heart in the dead of winter.
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