MASSIVE ATTACK'S GLORIOUSLY GLUM "HELIGOLAND"

“Pray For Rain”, the opening salvo on "Heligoland", Massive Attack’s fifth studio album, augurs a welcome return to form for Bristol’s broodiest b-boys. The track’s dolorous mood, underpinned by rolling, tribal drums and indigenous, ravished-plains imagery (delivered by Tumbe Adebimpe, the lead singer from TV On The Radio), could easily have provided the soundtrack for the apocalyptic blockbuster "The Road".

The last time the band sounded so gloriously glum was over a decade ago, on the masterful "Mezzanine" album from 1998. There was only one other studio album since then, "100th Window" (2003), an indulgent misfire from Robert del Naja (aka 3D) working alone (Daddy G, finally living up to his moniker, was taking time off to be a father).

Seven years on and it’s heartening to be wrapped again in the band’s familiar claustrophobia, their almost comforting paranoia. Adebimpe’s rich, spectral voice gives way to one that’s more translucent but no less familiar--that of Tricky’s former sparring partner, Martina Topley-Bird. She copes admirably with the bright, spiky beats, rhythmic, industrial hisses and choppy post-punk guitar of “Babel”, imbuing the song’s determined angularity with a soulful radiance.

The creeping, lurching “Splitting The Atom” sounds like it was recorded after the band--Daddy G, 3D and Horace Andy, a regular guest vocalist-–had split an entire bag of sensimilla and stumbled around a hall of mirrors for a couple of hours, chortling hysterically at their distorted reflections one minute, scaring the shit out of each other the next. Daddy G’s gruff growl, 3D’s eerie background vocals and Horace Andy’s sweet reggae falsetto haven’t sounded this good together for a long time.

So far, so dystopian. But the boys don’t stop there. The pounding “Girl I Love You” rides a ridiculously heavy, Mezzanine-era bass-line through discordant hoops of ringing guitar and avant-jazz trumpets; and “Flat Of The Blade” matches the maladroit Mancunian croons of Elbow’s Guy Garvey–-(opening line: “I’m not good in a crowd, I’ve got skills I can’t think of / things I’ve seen will chase me to the grave”)-–to a backdrop of sick bleeps and wonky glitches straight out of the Aphex Twin IDM songbook.

Such wilful dissonance recalls the sounds of the band's trip-hop counterparts, Portishead (also from Bristol). It can’t have escaped Massive’s notice that the uncompromising experimentalism of "Third" (2008), Portishead’s most recent album, was a critical success and a formidable comeback. Indeed, Portishead's guitarist, Adrian Utley, and keys player, John Baggott, both feature on "Heligoland".

Yet for all their urban moodiness and British introversion, Massive Attack is still a bunch of soul boys at heart. Spots of light shine through the album's crepuscular carapace. There’s the weightless “Psyche” (again with Topley-Bird); the excellent “Paradise Circus” (which merges the feathery vocals of Hope Sandoval with sparse handclaps and deep, understated bass); and the plodding pseudo-ballad “Saturday Come Slow”, with its creaking, plaintive vocal supplied by Damon Albarn. Even some of the darker songs, such as "Pray For Rain” and “Flat Of The Blade”, reach exuberantly towards the sky, a stylistic tic the band has employed since “Unfinished Sympathy”, from its debut album "Blue Lines" in 1991.

Any album Daddy G and 3D put together is destined to wilt in the shadow of "Blue Lines". Even so, "Heligoland" has all the hallmarks of a classic Massive album. It carries the bruised, stoned production, the dense, cloying atmospheres and intermittent surges of hope and optimism. Its myriad shapes, moods and structures hang together well and the guest performances are on the whole excellent. It may not be a return to the holy land suggested by the album's title, but it is a laudable journey in that direction.

"Heligoland" by Massive Attack, out on February 8th

~ PAUL SULLIVAN