A Massive Attack Land!

Takes time to release a new studio album. It could even take seven years. You can just play golf for six years and in one year call out for divine inspiration and put your brain cells to work on the best musical path that you can. Or each member of the band can be involved in so many other side-projects like solo albums, compilations and even lovely soundtracks. Of course that is what true musicians do. Like the guys that did the album Heligoland. Because they make Massive Attack.

It is always fascinating to listen to an album made in a studio occupied by a band like Massive Attack. It’s like a celebrity musical Grand Central Terminal. Divine voices come in, sing a couple of lines, others come and play a little bit with the instruments and then live it up to the constant brains in the studio to mash it all up. And then indeed ‘God have mercy’!

It is premature to talk about the album as a whole and its overall impression. When dealing with a duo like Massive Attack and adding eclectic names of producers, vocalists and instrumentalists, certain dissection is required. Tunde Adebimpe is the guest vocalist on Pray for Rain, first song of the album. Charming voice but the drumming is just wow! Dramatic rounds of tom-tom and quite effective high-hat and simple cymbal touches under great lyric imagery. A Martina Topley-Bird is the voice for the lifeless song called Babel, pretty much same situation repeated in Psyche.

Then the voice of Horace Andy is joined by Daddy G (Grant Marshall) and Robert Del Naja alongside an instrumental with magical touches a la Damon Albarn. Ergo, a dark feeling and acoustic fineness in Splitting the Atom. The funeral organ does the trick. The darkness reappears on Flat of the Blade together with Albarn’s touch. And Splitting the Atom follows Pray for Rain in the lyrical Massive Attack characteristic of large scale and universal inspiration ‘ You’re looking at stars that give you Vertigo/ The sun’s still burning and dust will blow’.


Songs like Girl I love You and even Rush Minute are good tracks nonetheless, but slightly reminiscent of UNKLE. In Paradise Circus we recognize the signature voice of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval. But this time we get Hope’s classic voice tempo on top of surreal orchestration, especially towards the ending of this romantic song. And finally Damon Albarn emerges from under a pile of instruments and steps to the mike in Saturday Come Slow. Never mind the track, just the voice matters. Then one more time like on Rush Minute, in Atlas Air just Robert Del Naja in the speakers. And like on Saturday Come Slow, a little bit of Portishead touch on the negative. Appreciating in this song, not only the amazing voice but again a terrific ending for the song.

The most positive thing about each song’s composition is noticing that despite the mix of sounds (thus the experimental Massive Attack work definition), there is no sound chaos but clear acoustic resonance. It is nicely and carefully skilled artwork in placing each instrument into the spotlight or contributing to the whole picture of sounds. Still the album is not a ‘massive attack’, to play with words, it’s more like a swing in the air. Like Bambino stretching and trying up his bat before actually hitting the ball, making a home run of almost 600 feet. Hopefully a swing like that.

*picture courtesy of Wikipedia