Saturday, January 7, 2012

Album of the Day: Massive Attack - Mezzanine


Do you ever make beats in your head as you listen to music? This album feels like a collection of those, only refined and not made by an idiot. The CD was already tagged 'Trip Hop,' and while that doesn't quite describe it, I can't think of anything better to change it to, other than the generic 'Electronic.' Usually with beat-focused albums, any presence of singing or other vocals serve to diminish everything else, but here the vocals work as their own instrument, creating a sound that goes beyond what the lyrics attempt to convey. By the way, the theme song to 'House' is on here – how did I not know about that? I had no idea that there was a singer. You can tell that someone just went crazy with a drum machine on every song, particularly 'Inertia Creeps,' my favorite song of the album, where it provides the backbone of the entire song. 'Exchange' feels a bit like if someone built a time machine, went back to the 70's, and sent a bass player from an R&B group into the future. I think that's pretty self explanatory. 'Dissolved Girl' starts off slowly and smoothly, with female vocals over a soft beat, then ratchets the tempo up with a shredding synth guitar. Overall, I'm shocked at how well they were able to incorporate vocals so well into such a seemingly-instrumental album.

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