Massive Attack continue their trip into the heart of darkness. On board this time 3D, Horace Andy and Sinéad O’Connor as female guest singer. Daddy G’s bass is sadly missing. 3D’s voice has improved a lot in comparison to the previous records where he mostly spoke the words. Now he whispers and hums, his voice is much better integrated into the overall sound. Unfortunately Sinéad O’Connor who sings on three tracks cannot match Liz Fraser’s ethereal vocals from Mezzanine. To me O’Connor’s pure voice seems an alien element to Massive Attack’s almost ambient music. It only fits in the single Special Cases where I didn’t recognize her voice at first as she sings lower than usual.

Musically 100th Window is a long flow, a very homogenous rather reflective record without extremes. A dense album which is more about textures than melodies. In places the music is tense and menacing, in others quite light and fragile. The overall atmosphere is brooding. Like the calm beforer the storm. Besides new age Massive Attack quote oriental music and monumental film scores in their electronic(?) string arrangements. There is absolutely no hint to hip-hop or scratching on the record anymore. The beats are electronic and quite hypnotic. A low-key album which doesn’t show the extensive production which must have gone into it, there is a lot to discover in subsequent listens, it is a very rich, ripe fruit.

Everyone knows that Massive Attack are fierce opponents of the planned war against Iraq. I guess that the frequent use of Arabian string arrangements especially in the last very strong song Antistar is a way of saying why don’t we fuse Western and Eastern culture instead of making war one against the other. 3D’s last word is "bloodstains". The song finishes abruptly with the addictive dominating bass riff repeated over and over.

I have the impression Massive Attack get better and better with each album. I never got into Blue Lines, Protection was my initiation to the band and I liked it quite a bit at the time though I have played it to death long ago. Mezzanine was a great powerful coldwave record made 18 years after that genre peaked. I don’t listen to it very often anymore though. 100th Window currently is my favourite of theirs. It is already a strong contender for album of the year.

The official release date is February, 10th. Let's hope that the Iraq war will not have started then.

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