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100th Window

by Massive Attack

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With dark shades of dub and songs that stretch with patient grace, 100th Window finds trip-hop legends Massive Attack seeping through your speakers with the same eerie intensity they mined on 1998's revelatory Mezzanine. The burden of high expectations has been a constant for this band since they released the classic Blue Lines in 1991. Under pressure to produce yet another record that changes the playing field of dance music, the collective has turned in a brooding, orchestral work that profits greatly from collaboration. The breathy, distinctive voice of Sinead O'Connor elevates a song like "What Your Soul Sings" into a deeply affecting, candlelit nocturne, while Horace Andy's stylized vocal washes through the string-laden "Name Taken." O'Connor also shines on "A Prayer for England," a remake of "Safe from Harm" off Lines, as her barely contained emotions artfully collide with Window's stark, distorted production. It may not turn the world upside down again, but Massive Attack retains the power to keep you transfixed and blissfully off-balance. --Matthew Cooke