Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:37:57 +0100 From: David Thorpe Subject: Recently in the UK... MASSIVE ATTACK Mezzanine (Virgin) LP 5 stars out of 5 ...Mezzanine, an album so dark that it seems to soak up the light in the room like a miniature black hole. It was on the tape deck for the seventh (or eighth - ninth?) time and it wasn't getting any brighter...it is a beautiful and in no way laughable or exaggerated record - about disillusion, depression, death, decay and all other big, bad D-words...It's certainly got a touch of the Edgar Allan Poes about it, and I intend that as very high praise indeed. Right now, for example, I'm listening to Liz Fraser singing about the blossoming of black flowers in a frail, clear voice stripped of all the lush Cocteau Twins effects that made her the eighties' floating-candle poster-girl. Despite the best efforts of The Chemical Brothers, Beth Orton and various fools with bagpipes, this song, Teardrop, is the first to marry electronic production and folk without one or the other filing for divorce before the honeymoon breakfast. Not that Mezzanine is a club album in even the vague sense that the last two were. It sounds performed rather than programmed, and there's fuzz guitar all over the shop. Only a couple of tracks are resolutely digitized: Inertia Creeps and the title track, which hint at the fact that Tricky is present in spirit if not in voice. The slumberous and faintly sinister closeness of the first Massive Attack single, Daydreaming, has 'morphed into rank, toxic claustrophobia. But they do it so well. In fact, Mezzanine seems full of old themes with fangs and claws on. Horace Andy brings the faraway dub paranoia of his Spying Glass into disturbingly close focus on Man Next Door, and turns the devotional One Love into the obsessional Angel. The hushed, self-assured raps that core members Robert Del Maja and Grant Marshall played out on Five Man Army and Karmacoma have turned thoroughly nasty on Black Milk, Inertia Creeps and Group 4 ("To think that I lay next to you, wasting time," says Del Naja, and the fact that he murmurs rather than spits it is all the more unnerving). As Del Naja has pointed out, the feel of the album depends largely on the volume at which you play it. Set low, it worms its way glumly into the foreground. Turned up, it can be nothing short of brutal. If the sense of the album is that everything's wrong, then that feeling has rarely been more effectively expressed. Mezzanine really does take all those listens to fully appreciate it. By the time you're done, you'll be begging for the Happy Happy Joy Joy song from Ren & Stimpy. That or a litre of gin. But it'll be worth it. (David Bennun, from the Guardian) Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 14:10:17 +0200 From: David Ausloos Subject: Re: :: massive attack :: At 03:07 02/05/1998 EDT, you wrote: >hey everyone.....i just got my promo copy of massive attack's mezzanine and it >holds true to everything that's been written about it. its truly a haunting >experience..........and liz has truly been vindicated with her performance on >this album! this album will bring well-deserved praise & recognition for >massive attack and everyone who participated in its conception. Yep, this album is in my humble opinion the strongest of their releases. Makes me wonder why several (respected?) Belgian music-magazines rate it with a restrained sceptisism. Often dubbing it the "only half-decent" Massive-release, while it's all so obvious that "Mezzanine" is far more deep, mature and catchy than "Protection" (wich is of course a good album in it's own right, that's not my point). Fact is, peope seem to either need lots of time to get into it or fall for it on the spot. I am a memeber of the first group. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who fell instantly in love with "Risingson" (cool hard-edge Rimshot-beat-galore), "Black Milk" (Cocteau Twins meets trip-hop) and best of all "The Man next door" wich has the best opening-beat for years and years to come in the flooded genre. Just to say, anyone who's only half-interested in either Cocteau Twins or moody lava-lamp-athmospherics should defenitly check it out. I rest my case. Dave the Celt Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 01:09:25 EDT From: BluBelKnol Subject: L. Gerrard/Massive Attack reviews transcribed Following are brief reviews from the May 15th issue of Entertainment Weekly: MASSIVE ATTACK Mezzanine (Virgin) Mezzanine is Victorian trip-hop - hulking, clangorous, and dank. Vocalist Horace Andy, Cocteau Twin Liz Fraser, and rappers 3-D and Daddy G alternate between alienated lilts and hoarse threats as wheezing synthesizers, lumbering bass lines, and jagged guitars grind against each other in slow motion. It's industrial music for the turn of the century - the 19th century. A- -Steve Mirkin Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 21:08:42 -0700 From: Jon Subject: Re: Massive Overload > How many > people realised that "unfinished sympathy" was one of the best 5 songs > of the 90's? But it's only now (when the 4AD link becomes more aparent) > that we can see all this obsesion about Massive Attack. They deserve > it... but since a long time ago, and not because of Liz. > I actually don't own "Protection" yet, but have most of the singles from it. I absolutely killed a tape of "Blue Lines" when it came out. I think that there are certainly more people on this list that are and have been "aware" of other quality music. I mean, if it were not for our open ears, would we not have picked up on the 4AD tip? I think "Blue Lines" was definitely a top album of the time and remains as timeless as even "Mezzanine". And I think that yes, the Liz connection has kept Massive Attack in our conversation as it is relavent. Until Lisa Gerrard actually confirms a tour, the new Hope Blister comes out commercially, or 4AD gets a clue about the Pixies, I suppose the discussion will continue. Jon ps- Massive Attack trivia- during the time that "Blue Lines" was released, the band renamed themselves Massive in the European market since it was right about the same time the Gulf War was in full swing. So as not to be miscontrued as pro-War, they changed the name to Massive for a short time.