Current favorite song ever: "That's Really Super, Supergirl" by XTC

Massive Attack, Mezzanine

Even though I�m not a professional music critic, there are phrases and descriptions that I read and wish I�d thought of first. One such description applies to Massive Attack�s Mezzanine; I remember reading once that this album absorbs light. How apt. There certainly is nothing light about Mezzanine, but it is darkly brilliant: Massive Attack is Darth Vader to Everything But The Girl�s Luke Skywalker. (Maybe I could be a music critic after all; I�ve got the overwrought metaphors down).

I was a latecomer to Mezzanine, hearing it for the first time in 1999. I was back in Grinnell after finishing college, taking extra classes and languishing about town with Mark and his Class of 2000 cronies. Mark was proud of the fact that Mezzanine was recorded using the same software he used on the Speed Of Sauce album. I listened to it a lot on his very expensive headphones, then finally burned myself a copy and kept it in steady rotation in my DiscMan that autumn, as winter crept steadily closer and it got darker sooner every day, the perfect environment for Mezzanine�s twilight reckoning.

I was a total sucker for �Angel�, the song that, along with �Dissolved Girl�, launched a thousand movie soundtracks that year. Horace Andy�s androgynous, wavering croon is the only voice that could sound appropriate against �Angel��s lurking verse/crashing chorus structure. As the album�s only ballad, �Teardrop� is the closest thing to redemption here, but perhaps it�s too mournful even for that. As the album cycles on, the dark only encroaches further, as if the terrifying insect rendered on the cover were moving, inch by inch, closer to the edge of your bed. The title track and �Group Four� make an epic double blow; led off by Daddy G�s growling admonition you know you�ve gotta heart made of stone / you could�ve let me know / you should�ve let me know, the entire song cycle arrives at its outer-limits apogee and mission statement when the tempo of �Group Four� ramps up and Elizabeth Fraser�s fractured, ethereal chorus begins:

When I discovered this album I was in a strange, transitional time, back in my quiet, dark hometown after I thought I�d escaped it, waiting for the next step. Listening to this album brought some strange solace, a perverse comfort in immobility. Listening to it, it�s hard to think of a reason why you�d ever want to venture outside your familiar walls to see daylight again.

0 Comments

Back & Forth