To suggest Massive Attack’s 2003 comeback, 100th Window, arrived with baggage would be an understatement. The former trio’s fracture and disconnect was laid bare in the wake of 1998’s seminal Mezzanine. Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowels walked out, citing creative differences, while Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall went on indefinite sabbatical, leaving Robert ‘3D’ del Naja the collective’s lone pilot.
If 100th Window’s serviceable, if gloom-ridden tropes showed anything, it was that group’s fraught personal and creative dynamics added a hue that del Naja couldn’t capture alone. Seven years on, and with Marshall back on deck, Heligoland arrests the slide.
The lurking piano phrasing and euphoric resolution of Pray For Rain (with TVOTR’s Tunde Adebimpe) encapsulates Heligoland’s revitalised mood. All the hallmarks are here – suffocating atmospheres; menacing subterranean tones. This collection shines via its unlikely counterpoints. Splitting the Atom (with longtime stalwart Horace Andy) shrouds an ostensibly kitsch piece of dub-pop with epic, spectral atmospheres, while Psyche sees Martina Topley-Bird morph a busy, dominating acoustic guitar lick into an unfeasibly spacious sketch.
Flat of the Blade’s shuddering static anaemic vocals (courtesy of Elbow’s Guy Garvey) are unlike anything they’ve done before. It’s not a classic – Rush Minute and Paradise Circus are unconvincing – but Heligoland illustrates that Massive Attack still have much to give. Dan Rule
VIRGIN/EMI
