If a band calls themselves Massive Attack, then it’s only natural to expect their music to be dangerous. Which is precisely what the trip-hop masters conjured up on 1998’s Mezzanine. The album’s best-known song is arguably “Teardrop,” which features the lovely voice of Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser (and was used as the theme for House M.D.) But “Risingson” is the song that grabbed me by the throat when I first listened to Mezzanine, and it’s never let go.

The band has always incorporated dub atmospheres into their music, but here, the dub is of the bleak and blackened variety as the band reflects on the late ’90s Bristol club scene. And if “Risingson” is any indication, it was a bleak, drug-infested wasteland. Robert Del Naja’s voice is sinister as he raps “I see myself in there upon my lover/I don’t know her from another miss/I don’t know you from another.” By comparison, Grant Marshall’s deep voice booms: “Why you want to take me to this party and breathe?/I’m dying to leave/Every time we grind we know we severed lines/Where have all those flowers gone?”

It’s a dark and ominous walk on the wild side, and utterly gripping thanks to the eerie atmospherics, serpentine arrangements, and dense production.