This time, four years has passed, a lot of things have changed in Britain, Labour are now in power, Oasis and Blur are at eachother's throats, and the real music lovers are listening to Radiohead. 1998 was quite a signifficant year for many bands, including Manic Street Preachers winning probably a little more than they deserve in award gold. Although, one thing that needed to happen, and thankfully did, was the downright recognition for one of the best albums ever made. Mezzanine is an absolute beast, the absurdly powerful basslines and guitar riffs should just about melt the skin off anyone's face who is brave enough to turn their bass and treble to the max. You just can't find a word that would do justice to describe just how insanely powerful and original this record is. Massive Attack won two awards that year, one of them was for this album. Where are the rest of the awards?
The opener on this brazen-beaut, with it's trademark bassline is the raw and callous 'Angel', with Horace Andy back in the picture on vocals. Perhaps most well known for it's appearence in Guy Richie's 'Snatch' whilst 'Pikey' Brad Pitt's mother is being burnt alive inside her trashy caravan. Nice. This track explodes from your sound system half way through with some very tasty guitar efforts. Risingson, which happens to be my favourite track on the album is incredibly surreal and dark, One falls in love with the heavy bassline and rusty guitar reverbs that could make 'the edge's head spin. Two thirds of the way through this track is when it truly comes to life, a few thousand tiny hairs on your back and surrounding areas start to rise, and yes you are going to nod your head in a sadistic fashion, you love it. The drug references in the surreal video to Risingson are quite amusing, and no attempt to mask them has been made at all.
Teardrop, our third track softens the pace and allows for catching of breath and not to mention sanity back from our last two tracks. This song is incredibly dreamy and elegant, Powerful piano chords and a back-catching beat make for an extremely pleasing track, this song also happens to be by far the most populour track with the general populace, i'd have thought mainly because of how broad its appeal is.
Hearing the first 25 seconds of the next song allows you to sit comfortably and relax, but no, that's not going to happen, this song has tricked you. Inertia Creeps perhaps the most foreign-influenced sound on the record is particularly refined. Del Naja's lyrics leave you with thoughts of sexual connotations for the most part, probably because of the lingering 'She cooomes' that appears in the chorus. Again, half way through there is an eruption of delightful bass and it seems like someone has stolen the remote and turned the volume up about 7 or 8 notches to '40', but they didn't, its just your increasing exciteability and raised heartbreak.
It's time for a breather with 'Exchange' a mellow and flange-ridden track that just about anyone would like. It has been said that due to the huge amounts of arguments that occured in the production of this record that Mushroom's influence somewhat diminshed, but this track screams his handywork.
It's at this point, when you're half way through the album, 'Dissolved Girl' plays and the short-reverbed riff loops kick in, and a catchy and highly-danceable beat reveals itself. Gradually when you're listening to this song, you get the impression that you're progressing in levels of aggression. Something all-too present in this album is the emergence of powerful bass and guitars in the middle of the song, not that i'm complaining. This time though we get a much more rough-round the edges medley of guitar with a teasingly dark background of filtered electric guitar. But it's not quite over yet, and the track has a sound A-B-A type structure about it. as the bassline becomes much more deeper but gradually reverts back to its original state, and fades into silence.
The darkest track on the album is without a doubt 'Mezzanine' but what a masterpiece this is. Del Naja and Marshal's paranoic lyrics lend to this track to provide a particularly sinister sound. The rhythm in this track is wonderful, much nodding will be induced upon you here.
The scariest track on Mezzanine is Group Four. Mezzanine seriously needs a hazard sticker on the front of the jewel-case saying something along the lines of 'If you wish to retain perfectly working ear drums, do not buy this album', but then again you'd be too tempted because the Beatle image is quite impressive, and all of your mates are talking about it. We open to a chilling soundscape of dischorded rips and echoes, and a gradual reverb that increases in length as time passes by, then comes along the most wonderful of sound effects you're likely to hear, it can only be described as 'electronic panpipe slash airtripe sound effect coupled with the most powerful and deafening bass you will ever hear in your entire lifetime, your walls will crack and things are guaranteed to fall off the shelves. But you don't care and it's beautiful because you can literally feel this track pounding on your chest. This song will encapsulate you in a trance, Liz Fraiser's siren of a voice will hook your attention indefinately. Something i quite like is the back-and-forth exchange of lyrics between her and Del Naja. This has some seriously strange yet intriguing sound effects in it half way through, which can only be described as an alien or robotic chant. Group Four is immensely powerful and is very long, but that's a good thing because it's an absolute pleasure to listen to, that is if you can manage it after your eardrums are torn after the first two minutes of the song. Again, rock involvement is obvious two thirds of the way through, a more refined sound that is slightly repetitive but definately relavent and necessary as you climb down from Group Four and think 'woah'.
This is by far the most powerful, poetic and rewarding experience from Massive Attack to date, and a serious contender for best album of the 90's, and is up there with Nevermind by Nirvana, or OK Computer by Radiohead. Definately the best thing to come out of 1998, and apart from there being no point in having both versions of 'Exchange' on the album I can't even fault it. You need to have this in your cd collection. It is a masterpiece.
David Brennan
9.4/10 - Excellent | Highly Reccomended | Buy this album
