massive attack : back! back!! back!!!

OMG I JUST REMEMBERED HELICOPTER GIRL lol

they started sounding a lot more cold

this is why mezzanine is so great

1. Didn't the Slits version go halfway towards that?
2. And that lead to Razorlight?
3. um...

xpost - so the guardian review is a load of old shit then? still gonna check it out. though i hated that first lead leak.

i haven't read the guardian review yet. on one listen i thought heligoland was really boring and kinda pointless at this stage, no track leapt out and even the gui boratto remix of the single doesn't improve matters.

Razorlight?

Not heard the Slits cover - that may well be the source of MA's version

All the new one goes back to is having some recognisable tunes.

Could do with some more, though. Shara Nelson, Tracey Thorn and Nicolette all wrote fantastic, striking melodies whereas here Guy Garvey, Tunde etc tone down their melodic instincts to suit the minor-key gloom.

i dont know why they dont go back to sourcing unheard voices rather than their celeb mates.

True true.

true indeed and such a tired roster of celebs.

unrelated but side 2 of Mezzanine is pretty much the essence of that album (a bit like for Disintegration)

OK, so I went back to Mezzanine side 2 and I'm still not convinced. Dissolved Girl is dreadful - overblown guitars, bland vocals - a glimpse of the dud Mezzanine might have been had the overdone the gothic rock moves. Black Milk is the closest they ever came to generic sluggish trip hop. The title track suffers badly by comparison with Risingson. Man Next Door is colossal, and Group Four is far more dramatic than I remembered, but I still think it's too frontloaded to be a masterpiece.

Risingson reminded me that 3D and Daddy G (and sometimes Tricky) trading rhymes used to be one of my favourite sounds in pop. The fact that Splitting the Atom squanders that chemistry on such a lifeless beat is a crying shame. It's interesting that Massive, Tricky and Portishead all fell out of love with hip hop as they got older - in the first two cases it was to their detriment.

i hate their rapping but where they took hip hop in their productions was always more interesting to me. though not when theyre doing more straight up hip hop, i dont think i even liked their collabos with black thought and mos def all that much. i didnt really think of it as them falling out of love with hip hop as they got older - though yes, that makes total sense, and mirrors most people who loved hip hop of their age - i just assumed it was them catering a bit more to their more mainstream base.

Black Milk is the closest they ever came to generic sluggish trip hop.

i don't see how it can be sluggish other than anything at that tempo being sluggish. it's DEFT.

i love Mezzanine the track too, more than Risingson. Group 4 is obviously stunning but one i tended to skip as i was rarely in the mood for it's darkness.

I don't think they're interested in catering tbh. Whatever direction they go in, I think it's entirely sincere. 100th Window was nobody's idea of a crowdpleaser.

I loved their rapping so much - along with Tricky they invented a uniquely British style of MCing that nobody else pursued after them. I say this as someone who generally hates the sound of Brits rapping.

Black Milk is the closest they ever came to generic sluggish trip hop.

idk mane they basically invented it, so i think they have a right to make trip hop! that track is so 1998 it hurts, but i like it. lol "but".

though it doesn't need to be 6:22 long, jeez

too short

he spells it with a $ iirc

98 was a bit late in the day to be making something so straight down the line though - ethereal vocal + hip hop beat/scratching + gothic ambience. Even fucking Crustation were doing it by that point.

all Massive Attack albums are 2 years late

"I loved their rapping so much - along with Tricky they invented a uniquely British style of MCing that nobody else pursued after them. I say this as someone who generally hates the sound of Brits rapping."

i always thought their rapping was a bit more in line with non hip-hop rapping, from people that were obv steeped in hip hop but werent trying to be mcs, like the streets, or - lol- fun loving criminals (i know the vibe is totally diff) etc.

so it has kinda continued, even if its stuff like that guy who did that stars in their eyes song last year.

but MAs flow is basically an old one, just made less forceful (cos that would prob sound silly in their mouths), and more stonerish/quiet (cos that would be scary otherwise). sort of like freedom williams-gone-trip hop.

It's the tone more than the flow - so effortless and, for want of a better word, cool. The way they interacted on Five Man Army, they just sounded like the coolest band on Earth.

youre right. it is 'cool', hence why i thought of huey from the FLC (though i dont really think he was cool). i think they have something in common with the likes of us3 and people like that generally, non hip-hop rap (and for people that might find normal hip hop too hard). i just dont tend to like that 'cool' vibe.

funnily enough, i always thought spaceape would be a great fit for massive attack. i wonder if they ever approached each ogther. wasnt kode 9 originally working with daddy g?

Haha is that the 1st mention of Crustation upthread? I remember buying this album. lol late 90s

I spent most of this weekend listening to this album. I have no idea what the people who dislike this are hearing because, to my ears, it is competing with Owen P's Heartland for best album of 2010 so far.

Ordered this from Amazon. For some reason it will be arriving today, not last Tuesday -- maybe they had the release date somehow mixed up. Was it pushed forward? In any case... expectations not too high for this, but hoping to find a few great tracks among the rest. I was blown away by their live show in 2006 (I think), but I'm prepared for a mediocre album.

this is the original of man next door aka I've Got To Get Away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRDILYQqUkM

although my favourite is Dave Barker's version which also predates the Dennis Brown one (can't find this on youtube) and may actually be superior even to the massive attack take.

I also love this tune, which I think it's loosely based on. Definitely lyrical similarities. Coincidentally, Johnny Dollar was the alias of one of the guys who worked with Massive Attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_rEU5v_LGE

oh that's nice. curiouser and curiouser. here's the Dave Barker Version: "i just can't stand it!/ i just can't stand it!"

http://www.sendspace.com/file/v9azep

I have no idea what the people who dislike this are hearing
i hear a record which seems to be made by a robot or something. unimaginative, lifeless, boring, repetitive tracks which go nowhere. except the two songs i mentioned before. what do i miss? does the album get better by each listen? btw the cover art is abominable too.

^ they should ban it from the underground

The cover art is unforgivable, yeah.

I think the songs are very tightly wound. I love the singing pretty much across the board, particularly "Girl I Love You", "Pray For Rain" and "Saturday Come Slow" (the parallels between that and "This Is A Low" are what draw me to it) and I like how they've rediscovered how to build a song out of a monochromatic sound palette without being entirely static; I was also a fan of the glacial reserve exhibited by 100th Window but was kind of concerned that "Splitting The Atom" was a sign that they were going to stay in that vein with the sound density removed. Instead, they slimmed down the sound in spots to reintroduce sense of nimbleness that they haven't really used since Blue Lines.

btw "Paradise Circus" and "Rush Minute" have now joined the ranks of the first 3 songs I listed in terms of tracks this album has me obsessed with

I like the cover art! It reminds me for some reason of the Stephen Gammell artwork for the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book series.

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t159/JCDentonDX/Blog/scary1pic01.jpg

rush minute is my fave by far now

"rush minute" is quite nice, you are right. not a lot happening and a bit repetitive but it has something about it.

too many vocalists. i mean i don't even dislike elbow but guy garvey's vocal is so fucking dreary and depressing (without even being, like, seductively or groovily melancholy like MA used to do). i have to say that the horns on that track are gorgeous though.

rush hour has something... but then again it also had 3D's self parodic vocal and those guitars, which are horrible. worse, it also induces the lyric "all is clear/ in a glass of beer".

by horrible guitars i mean the ones at around the three minute mark. the ones are the end are pretty good sounding.

I am at the Massive Attack gig tonight - my first extended exposure to them aside from recently hearing "Mezzanine". I find it alternately thrilling and dull.

I wondered why they even play live at all when I saw them. They tinker away at their albums for years until they sound just right and then tour to show us how impossible it is to recreate that sound with a live band?

every massive attack concert i attended was a snoozefest. their music simply does not work live.

I saw them in 2004, if I recall, and it was one of my favorite shows ever at the time. Then again, I was rather drunk.

they were fucking fantastic in front of the Opera House in March

http://www.residentadvisor.net/photos/2010/au100315massiv/100315massiveattack27.jpg

done a real 180° on this album - really loving it now after much exposure. The Albarn track is pretty awesome

It's still one of my favorites of the year.

I love Pray For Rain, Psyche, Girl I Love You and Paradise Circus. The rest I'm still not entirely convinced by.