Massive Attack
100th Window

THE REVIEW

The hundredth open window on the reality we live, with a touch of meticulous attention to detail.

I won’t talk about the group itself, no one is interested in hearing erudite and superfluous information about its members.
How many people will oppose me if I define the music of Massive Attack as the true essence of urban and metropolitan reality of the new millennium? How close can an album like this come to a total break from the past and the creation of the gateway to the music of the future?

The answer is not immediate, but it is felt when listening to "Future proof", the "proof of the future".
But where does this future lead us? To a slow destruction or a process of rebirth? It’s certainly not with songs like "Special Cases" that we will know the answer, even if it seems to encourage us to take confidence in ourselves: "The deadliest of sin is pride-makes you think that you're always right".

However, it’s detailed and almost scientific songs like "Small time shot away" and "Butterfly Caught" that slowly reopen the wounds of war, the destruction of the inner essence intertwining love and death with enigmatic coldness, presenting a flow of consciousness as a series of images juxtaposed with each other forming a harmonic decadence.
In "A prayer for England", Massive denounces dirty murders and dark crimes occurring among English youth and, accusing teachers of their negligence within schools concerning these violences, formulates this prayer-song addressing "Jah" which can be interpreted as "Jhvh" or "God", or can be understood as Jah à la Bob Marley, "Jah People".

The other songs are certainly no less, but I don’t want to make a thorough analysis of each song, so I have focused only on those that struck me the most. Stunning and delicate as always is the voice of Sinead O'Connor, who collaborates with the group since Nelson's departure from the group, who together with Horace Andy and Robert Del Naja completes the trio of vocalists alternating within the album.

Much more studied and full compared to "Mezzanine", its predecessor, "100th Window" however proves to be less commercial and more experimental, showing the new path taken by Massive Attack, oblivious, even if not completely, of their roots ("Blue Lines") and firmly decided to evolve their sound making it adaptable to every stimulus coming from society, culture, and the world itself.