Its placement on Mezzanine is crucial in retaining the consistent claustrophobic flow of the album.
The impact of Inertia Creeps is astounding. Why you keep me testing, keep me tasking/
“Where have all those flowers gone? Long time passing/ On top of this, Daddy G directly references Pete Seeger: I say unbelievable as it’s barely detectable amidst the furore of reverb and deep dub samples. Almost unbelievably, Risingson samples the Dylan-esque folk song I Found A Reason by The Velvet Underground. 3D and Daddy G both rap from chorus to chorus, challenging each other, fuelling paranoia and suspicion. The track is about the Bristol club scene at the time and this is quite clearly reflected in its lyrics. For me, Risingson is a sonic representation of a spider spinning a silvery web in a dank sewer. A throbbing bassline underscores ghostly atmospherics, shredded guitar and wah-wah samples to a stellar effect. Risingson builds on this creepy vibe even further, firmly taking us into a claustrophobic vortex of sound. You can actually feel the tension in the music as you listen to it. Angel invokes a feeling of dread, yet it’s addictive, sensual and inspiring, building a wall of dense layered samples. It chews up Horace Andy’s 1973 song You Are My Angel, turning the sentimental reggae number into something eery and deeply uncomfortable, before spitting it back out. It’s dark, creepy, insular and lends the opening 70 seconds a haunted feeling that the rest of the album never shakes off. A low vibrating bassline fades into play, before slow tick-tocking beats and scattered string samples kick in.
Mezzanine opens quite unlike any album I’ve heard before. But Mezzanine is a sleeping beast that has well and truly withstood the ravages of time. Like a number of other 1990’s British albums that have gone on to be regarded as all-time classics, it was released to little fanfare or drama. For Massive Attack’s Mezzanine it’s a case of better late than never, though. I’ve been meaning to review this album for several years now and laughably missed my own deadline to cover it in time for its 20-year anniversary in late 2018.
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