Massive Attack 100th Window CD

Feat.Sinead O'Connor On 3 Tracks,Horace Andy On 2.

Massive Attack: Mushroom, 3-D, Daddy G.
Additional personnel: Sinead O'Connor, Horace Andy, Robert Del Naja (vocals); Angelo Bruschini (guitar); Skaila Kanga (harp); Stuart Gordon (violin); Jon Harris (bass); Damon Reece (drums).
Producers: Robert Del Naja, Neil Davidge.
A new album from Massive Attack is an event, even if only one-third of the original group is present for the festivities. Just the group's fourth album in more than a dozen years, 100th Window marked the departure of Mushroom (permanently, after artistic differences) and Daddy G (temporarily, to raise a family), leaving only one founding member, 3D (Robert del Naja), to muddle along with arranger/producer Neil Davidge (who made his Massive Attack debut on 1998's Mezzanine). Though Del Naja is mostly successful giving the people what they want -- a follow-up to Mezzanine, one of the most compulsive listens of '90s electronica -- it unfortunately comes as a sacrifice to the very thing that made Massive Attack so crucial to dance music: their never-ending progression to a radically different sound with each release. For better or worse, 100th Window has the same crushingly oppressive productions, dark, spiralling basslines, and pile-driving beats instantly familiar to fans of Mezzanine. Fortunately, it also has the same depth and point-perfect attention to detail, making for fascinating listening no matter whether the focus is the songs, the effects, or even the percussion lines. Jamaican crooner Horace Andy is back for a pair of tracks ("Everywhen," "Name Taken") that nearly equal his features on the last record, while Sinéad O'Connor makes her debut with three vocal features. Unlike Liz Fraser or Tracey Thorn (two Massive Attack muses from the past), O'Connor's voice lacks resonance and doesn't reward the close inspection that a Massive Attack production demands. Still, her songwriting is far superior and the slight quaver in her voice adds a much-needed personality to these songs. "A Prayer for England" is a political protest that aligns itself perfectly with the group that coined its name as a satirical nod to military aggression. Another feature for O'Connor, "What Your Soul Sings," is the only song here that compares to the best Massive Attack has to offer, beginning with a harsh, claustrophobic atmosphere, but soon blossoming like a flower into a beautiful song led by her tremulous voice. In comparison, the four songs for 3D are average at best, mere recyclings of the same ideas heard years earlier. That's satisfaction enough for those who kept Mezzanine near their stereo for years on end, but a disappointment to those expecting another masterpiece. ~ John Bush
After a five-year gap, the follow-up to 1998's lauded MEZZANINE finds Massive Attack picking up right where they left off, as though no time had passed at all. The trademark mix of downtempo electronica, slithery trip-hop, darkly ambient atmospherics, and spacious dub production touches is still strongly in place, and this time around Sinead O'Connor fills the dreamy-chanteuse role played on MEZZANINE by Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser. The contrast of smooth, orchestral textures and wide, open sonic spaces with moody, paranoiac touches and creepy, downcast emotional vistas continues to make for some effective dynamics. The tempo picks up on the pulsing, insistent "A Prayer For England," but for the most part this is music to dream by, even if those dreams do turn out to be unsettling and subversive, full of strangely attractive uneasiness.

Rolling Stone (2/20/03, p.61) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...This may be the most accessible, freaky, futuristic electronic head-food album on the market..."
Spin (3/03, pp.117-8) - 7 out of 10 - "...100TH WINDOW is a masterpiece of haunted sonics..."
Uncut (3/03, p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...There's a radioactive air about the album, which coupled with the use of Eastern, Arabic strings, brings to musical life a palpable sense of post-September 11 tension....It takes you there..."
The Wire (2/03, p.62) - "...Yawning, meticulous Ambient fields....It's all elegantly executed and often beguiling..."
Vibe (4/03, p.178) - 4 discs out of 5 - "...With its ice-cold beats, smoldering bass lines, and shimmering textures, this is one of the most openly erotic albums British pop has ever given us..."
Mojo (Publisher) (3/03, p.97) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...[Del Naja] is by turns breathy and uncertain, sensitive and coaxing, seductive and menacing....Massive Attack are still restless, still questing, still chary of stagnation..."