Review Summary: 100th Window's atmosphere works together as a whole, but when the one song that doesn't apply is better than the rest that do, it's a bit of trouble.
100th Window is an album where atmosphere is the name of the game. After stripping themselves of samples and any jazz fusion influences, Massive Attack use this album to continue their agenda and make their music as stripped down as it can be. In that sense,
100th Window is a bit more of an exercise, a building up of pieces, than any other Massive Attack release, and is much more atmospheric in that sense. It gains credit for this, but that's also the reason why its lesser. Nevertheless,
100th Window works together well.
100th Window's atmosphere is by far the most noticeable part of it, with the drawling, lingering electronics creeping in. Some will say the vocals are uninspired, but their chant-like, whispery tone brings shivers to the listeners spine. Sprawling and swirling,
100th Window thrives off this building nature of constantly twiddling synths swirling into a storm of things. At this point, highlights should be brought up for mention, and there are quite a few that dwendle in this atmosphere quite successfully. “Special Cases” takes use of Sinéad O'Connor ghastly thin voice and adds back broken, backwards mechanized bass and horror synths to create a culminating backdrop that is absolutely convincing. “Butterfly Caught” is a sprawling, electronica masterwork, fuzzy, washing electronics and robotic vocals meshing somehow to create an brooding, seven-minute melting pot. Other tracks take elements from these same basic principals and do well for themselves, but do it in a lesser sense.
It's funny , however, that the album highlight is the one track that decides to stray away from this down-toned, bottomless pit atmosphere and moves a bit. “A Prayer For England”, due to the political nature of its lyrics, starts out a bit modest, but continues into pulsating bass and clickity drums, sort of creating a climactic point in the albums development. Combine that with, once again, Sinead O'Connor's heartfelt, slightly more eager vocal performance, and we get the one track on
100th Window that creates something worth listening to on it's own. Admittedly, the rest of
100th Window is good, but it drags, especially at it's hour-plus length, and sort of dulls after a while of it's atmospherics. That, and it's not quite what listeners expect from a band with such a high quality mark as Massive Attack. Despite that,
100th Window still works, and is worth listening to.
