Angel

The opening track of Mezzanine, a Horace Andy song reworked by the band.
Massive Attack, from Mezzanine (1998)

Written by
Horace Andy, Grant Marshall, Robert Del Naja
Released
13 July 1998
Length
6:18
Album
Mezzanine

Angel has vocals and songwriting from Horace Andy and is partly based on his own song You Are My Angel. Daddy G, the main writer along with 3D, described it as starting something they had to finish. It samples The Incredible Bongo Band's Last Bongo in Belgium. Angelo Bruschini plays the guitars, and the bass guitars are credited to Jon Harris, Bob Locke and Winston Blissett. Pitchfork's Nate Patrin wrote that the lead-jointed bass line that opens the album is to subwoofers what Planet Earth is to high-definition television.

It was the third single from Mezzanine, released on 13 July 1998, and reached number 30 in the UK. Walter Stern's video follows Daddy G through a car park at Paddington as a growing crowd, including 3D, Mushroom and Andy, follows him and then mirrors his movements. A first promo, said to have cost about 20,000 pounds, was not used for the single and stayed unseen for over three years until the Eleven Promos DVD in 2001.

Afterlife

It turned up in the 1998 World Cup adverts for Adidas, in the film Snatch, and in the 2002 relaunch of Top Gear. Sepultura and The Dillinger Escape Plan recorded it, and Leprous released a version as a single in 2019.

Covers and versions

More songs by Massive Attack

Teardrop, Risingson, Unfinished Sympathy, Safe from Harm, Protection, Karmacoma, Inertia Creeps

Sources

  1. Angel (Massive Attack song), Wikipedia
  2. Mezzanine, Pitchfork (2017-01-08)