Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Massive Attack
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 2010
Runtime: 52:31
Rating: 4/5
The fathers of trip hop, Massive Attack, are back seven years after their last real studio album “100th Window” with a new release, “Heligoland”. The name refers to the German archipelago of Helgoland in the North Sea, though by some readings it’s also meant to be a mash-up of the words “Hell”, “Ego” and “Land”.
It’s fair to say the seven-year wait was worth every minute. After the excellent “Mezzanine”, “100th Window” tried to offer a different sound and was marked by even more sonic manipulation and experimentation, but on the flip side it came off pretty dry in its expression. It kept losing the thread, especially in the longer, stretched-out passages, which robbed the listener of time rather than handing over anything useful, or a “useful bone to gnaw on”.
“Heligoland”, more than 20 minutes shorter than its predecessor, on the one hand continues the story of its predecessor’s sonic experiments, while at the same time bringing back more compact songs and, above all, the dark atmosphere that defined “Mezzanine”. So it combines the changes brought by “100th Window” with the mood of “Mezzanine”. The return of Daddy G to the lineup probably helped write this happy ending to the story, too. The album is once again denser and more clearly defined in its basic figures, and it also radiates the maturity of experimental collage-building around the rhythm itself, which the band constructs with electronic beats, layered sub-rhythms from programmed samples, an occasional spotlight on the bass guitar, over which they lay shards of jazz built mostly on classical piano, vintage synthesizer sounds and woodwinds. In short, after the less interesting “100th Window”, this is an album Massive Attack practically bled for, one that gets them galloping back onto the “right recognizable tracks” where they feel most at home.
The bizarre quality of the Massive Attack sound has always been the key to their success. Not only that. The stuff pushed its way into your ear, drawing you in and unsettling you with the “weirdness” of its very approach to experimenting with sound. With its pioneering provocation it even kicked off a whole branch of a new musical movement (trip hop), which gave birth to many bands that built upon and expanded the boundaries of the range Massive Attack originally set out. Of course, today the duo Massive Attack aren’t inventing anything new, but they stay true to their vision. Musically special and still very interesting.
The hypnosis of the slowed-down rhythmic foundation works this time too, in that signature Massive Attack manner, and we face the expected use of jazz samples, produced mostly by the old-school melodies of woodwinds (saxophones, trumpets, trombones) lifted from the distant past of the fifties. Over that, a vocal washed completely of color rises in the production, bringing in ice, melancholy, morbidity and anxiety. It achieves different effects in building mood and the feelings that arise while listening. It can cause deliberate dissonance that underlines the mood, but with a touch of cabaret, as in the album track Flat On The Blade. They pull off this trick in other songs by a different route too. By combining classical piano samples or retro synthesizer sounds with firmer rhythmic grips, as in the songs Babel, Paradise Circus or the opener, Pray To A Rain, the most wittily dynamic in its arrangements on this album. And the dark atmosphere of Rush Minute, with a veil of guitar added? It even catches a faint whiff that doesn’t hide years of listening to post punk, the second half of the eighties.
Splitting The Atom, released as a single in October 2009, is a detour on the album and isn’t representative of it as a whole. Built on the invasive melodic accessibility of a minimalist, sleepy dance beat with hand claps and the banal use of retro organ tones, topped with an overlay of no fewer than three lead vocals, it’s a trick with which the band breaks up that very banality, but it fails to hit a combination as interesting as the minimalist contrast used in Psyche, with its female vocal and repetitive guitar pattern, which gradually stacks up layers of sound to underline the atmospheric depth over the course of the song.
The generally dreamy atmosphere and slower-oriented rhythms are occasionally dosed with a faster rhythmic base, which even borrows a few tricks from Portishead’s disciples, as in Atlas Air, which isn’t exactly praiseworthy.
Once again the band assembled the material for the album from many studio sessions in which a crowd of musicians tried out, combined and discovered ideas. From the whole heap of motifs that came up, returnee Daddy G (Grantley Marshall to his friends) and Roberto Del Naja picked only a handful. Over seven years, usable material piled up in abundance, so it wasn’t hard to serve up some fresh tricks that drive the dynamic machinery of the new album. Collaboration with many musicians as guests is already established practice on Massive Attack’s studio albums. Some ideas, including ones that came out of working with an artist like Mike Patton, were rejected. But the contributions of the rest, such as the (already proven) Horace Andy, Martina Topley-Bird, guitarist Adrian Utley (Portishead), and then the “newcomers” who are far from new, Damon Albarn (Gorilazz, Blur), singer Hope Sandoval, Guy Garvey, Tunde Adebimpe and Jerry Fuchs, bring the required airing-out and variety to the songs, as well as color shifts in the moods they create. Of course there’s the worry about how many of the guests’ ideas amount to imitating the bands they come from, and to what extent those can cover up the basic figure defined by the Massive Attack musical language. No worries. The leveling-out turns through “Heligoland”, with the exception of the note on Atlas Air, consistently in favor of the recognizability of the Massive Attack sound.
A very good new Massive Attack album, though it will probably get stuck in the gray of lower visibility, as a potential target for comparative analysis weighing it against the latest Portishead achievement “Third”, from a band that woke up again after a long hiatus, and against “Mezzanine”, which can certainly be very unfair to “Heligoland”. “Heligoland” doesn’t reach the level of “Mezzanine”, but it will 100% make every fan of this band happy and reward their seven-year wait.
Lineup
Robert Del Naja – vocals (3.,8.,10.), programming, keyboards, arrangements
Daddy G – vocals (3.), arrangements
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Tunde Adebimpe – vocals (1.)
Martina Topley-Bird – vocals (2. & 6.)
Horace Andy – vocals (3. & 4.)
Guy Garvey – vocals (7.)
Hope Sandoval – vocals (8.)
Damon Albarn – vocals (9.), keyboards, bass guitar
Neil Davidge – programming, keyboards, guitar, bass guitar
Tim Goldsworthy – programming,keyboards
Dan Brown – programming, guitar
Stew Jackson – programming, guitar
Dan Austin – programming, keyboards
Evan Dickinson – programming, keyboards
John Baggott – keyboards
Adrian Utley – guitar
Dave Sittek – guitar
Harry Brown – woodwinds
Noel Langley – woodwinds
Chris Storr – woodwinds
Andy Grappy – woodwinds
Stuart Gordon – string arrangements (7.)
Billy Fuller – bass guitar
Damon Reece- drums
Jerry Fuchs – drums
Production
Robert Del Naja & Neil Davidge
Tracklist
1. Pray for Rain (6:43)
2. Babel (5:18)
3. Splitting the Atom (5:15)
4. Girl I Love You (5:26)
5. Psyche (3:23)
6. Flat of the Blade (5:29)
7. Paradise Circus (4:58)
8. Rush Minute (4:48)
9. Saturday Come Slow (3:42)
10. Atlas Air (7:47)
