It's been a long time getting here. Over five years, in fact, since their last album—the criminally underrated Heligoland—but Massive Attack are back with the Ritual Spirit EP, still emotional, brooding yet undeniably funky. They're back touring, back with Tricky, and a new album is said to be on the way later in 2016 (hopefully featuring a Run The Jewels collaboration after they were confirmed to be in the studio together) and they don't appear to have lost any steps, sounding just as urgent and revolutionary as they did in 1991. Starting off as a threesome, Mushroom left after Mezzanine and Daddy G abruptly left at the turn of the century only to return a couple of years later after making up with 3D.
Massive Attack's history is a messy one of conflicting personalities and artistic direction, but throughout all the turmoil, the music has remained consistently exceptional. They've worked with some of the most remarkable artists in music such as David Bowie on a remix of "Nature Boy", Damon Albarn, Mos Def, Sinead O'Connor and Madonna, and are pivotal to the evolution of music in the UK in a way few achieve. Even in the long periods between albums and tours, Massive Attack have still been able to maintain a grip on culture thanks to the use of their music in films and TV shows.
The long-running and immensely popular medical show House used "Teardrop" as its opening theme and the BBC's Luther makes brilliant use of the eerie "Paradise Circus" over its opening credits, and that's without mentioning the fact that The Matrix, Snatch and The Insider have all prominently used Massive Attack tracks at one time or another. One of the most influential and pioneering groups in UK music—in case you've forgotten—they're back, and the world is far more exciting for it. Here's why you should care about their return.
Tricky
Massive Attack's at times acrimonious relationship with Tricky finally imploded in 1995 after a fatal falling-out and the enigmatic rapper's greater desire to focus on his solo career. But while the going was good, it was really good. His whisper-like vocal style came to define the minimalist sound of the band's first two albums, particularly on title track "Blue Lines" where he and 3D concoct something that sounds like a spoken word duet wrapped around mesmeric keys.
But with the release of their outstanding new EP, Ritual Spirit, there's no longer a reason to look to the past as Tricky has finally reunited with the band which made his name. A new collaboration has been twenty years in the making and "Take It There" certainly didn't disappoint. A psychosexual aesthetic with a vocal delivery that takes you back to the early nineties, and is so perfectly crafted that even when Tricky isn't rapping, his spirit looms over the track like a phantom. It's without a doubt the highlight of the EP and if only he'd stuck around for Mezzanine...
They Reinvented Club Music
At the dawn of the '90s, there was a stark cultural shift: acid house was burning out and we'd awakened to the horror of Thatcherism, and out of that came grunge and Massive Attack. With the release of Blue Lines, club music suddenly became more introspective. Gone were the euphoric bass lines and disco-influenced jams, and enter the hypnotic and moody sounds that took over the UK throughout the nineties—something that has influenced countless artists. They created the trip-hop sound (though they loathe the term) and you can see Massive Attack's influence all over Portishead's work, not to mention Radiohead's later albums and much of the hip-hop that has come out in the post-808s And Heartbreak world can be traced back to the duo from Bristol.
"Unfinished Sympathy" in particular was a pioneering song in the development of British dance music and the club scene, with its smooth hip-hop beats fused with orchestral strings and the heart of a soul record to create something entirely overwhelming and era-defining. Massive Attack weren't necessarily aiming at revolutionising dance music because nobody could have predicted five years earlier that the club would have been awash with a combination of jazz, reggae and moody rap. As Daddy G put it, they were creating music for the head rather than the feet.
'Mezzanine'
Massive Attack's third defining album of the '90s is also their best. Mezzanine is a violent, angry, desperate album and fully embraces the dark side in a way they had never been quite brave enough to do before. Monstrous riffs occupy much of Mezzanine and none more obviously so on "Angel", the opening track that is haunting, bombastic and has such an intensity you can't help but take a deep breath when it's over. With a cyber noir aesthetic amplified by The Matrix's now-iconic use of "Dissolved Girl", it's hard to believe this was an album released in 1998, seemingly a lifetime before a world of iPhones and cyberterrorism, and in essence that urgency and insight is the vitality of the album.
The beauty of Mezzanine is that it was somehow constructed to fit any scenario—the club, the car, alone with some headphones, the bedroom, pop radio—and what the listener would get from the album would depend on what kind of psyche they brought to it. There is something simultaneously unsettling and soothing about Mezzanine, completely paranoid one second but a moment later you're drifting off into a dreamland. Two full albums and 18 years later, it's still their greatest achievement.
Fusing Of Genres
