Song Analysis: Massive Attack – Paradise Circus
On the first listen to the first proper single to be taken from Massive Attack’s long-awaited fifth album, Heligoland, it is all to easy to pick out things that remind you of bits and pieces from their past. The ultra-slow beats remind us of the eerie Man Next Door and Dissolved Girl off of Mezzanine, as does the sultry and seductive vocals of Hope Sandoval. In fact, I lied. Paradise Circus actually reminds me of a lot of songs from Mezzanine, which is as of present their best album. However, if you listen to the track a few more times, there are some things that jump out at you that give you high hopes for what is to come on the 8th February.
One of those things happens to be the strings that haunt the track in the second half. It’s a song that is quite fragile in its instrumentation and, for most bands, adding sweeping orchestral tones would have killed it. Massive Attack know how to make it work. The strings build and build in its climax so much to the point where it becomes overwhelming and then when it dies down you can only scratch your head and wonder what just happened that made you so compelled and so utterly hooked.
Paradise Circus is a perfect example as to why Massive Attack are one of the most important British artists of the last two decades.
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Posted on January 7th, 2010 by Max
Filed under: Song Analysis, Tracks
[...] rank amongst some of the best songs that they’ve ever made (see the outstandingly beautiful Paradise Circus and the subtly hypnotic album closer Atlas Air), you can’t help but feel that things [...]