Massive Attack ‘Heligoland’ // First Listen

Massive Attack
‘Heligoland’
(Virgin)

Massive Attack have never been afraid of letting other people hog the limelight on their records; ‘Heligoland’, the trip-hop pioneer’s fifth album, is no different, a host of guest vocalists stamping their own mark on the complexity and darkness of Massive Attack’s distinctive compositional style. Featuring the likes of TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adepimpe, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Martina Topley-Bird, Hope Sandoval and Damon Albarn, alongside 3-D and Daddy G and usual Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy, the Bristolians use their connections to form a vastly nightmarish body of work, turning the charming and loveable Garvey into a zombie-like murmur and the ethereal Martina Topley-Bird into a menacing siren. But big names aside, will the new songs match up to Massive Attack’s intimidatingly excellent back catalogue? We get our track-by-track groove on for a First Listen:

‘Pray For Rain’ featuring Tunde Adebimpe     
A shadowy drone hums before the astutely deadpan voice of TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe chimes in on ‘Heligoland’‘s opener. It might seem obvious, but Adebimpe’s soulful croon does make you think you’re listening to a TV On The Radio song, rather than a new Massive Attack one. A stormy, smoky ambiance provides the backdrop murmuring layers of vocals and rumbling drums building to a nightmarish level of anticipation. Ambiguous lines like ‘The residue of what once was/as shadowy cloud of circling dust’ repeat like a mantra as the pace fastens until an injection of echoing droplets of bright and glittering keys. For a moment, the darkness of the song dissolves into a glistening light before it eventually retreats back to its sombre sound to finish.

‘Babel’ featuring Martina Topley-Bird
A prickly, frantic crunch of electronics whirrs ‘Babel’ into life, which is unmistakeably Massive Attack; a bass-heavy beat groove marching behind Martina Topley-Bird’s sweet, entrancing voice melting over the top of what sounds likea distant cousin of Radiohead‘s ‘15 Step’ styled bass. The vocals dip in and out of warm and sinister tones and spindle wraithlike across an unrelenting drumbeat, switching into an impenetrable classically Massive Attack breakdown, synths frantically buzzing, with slashes of fuzzy, industrial noise finally ending with a shudder. Great.

‘Splitting The Atom’ featuring 3-D/Daddy G/Horace Andy 
A lazy, drawn out handclap begins ‘Splitting The Atom’ as an ominous organ paces and a deathly deep voice drones. Sounding every bit like a ghoulish Gorillaz song, the dazed, zombie-esque whispering vocals of ‘Splitting The Atom’ and Horace Andy’s stirring, beastly drawl sounds like a circus Haunted House soundtrack. Ominous vocals drop in and out, with one particularly trembling voice sounding like a whimpering Mr. Burns in comparison to the main, gargantuan grizzly vocal. Creepy stuff.

‘Girl I Love You’ featuring Horace Andy 
The otherworldly vocal of Horace Andy shimmers across the top of ‘Girl I Love You’. Building with a sturdy tremor, it sounds like a meatier Invisible, foreboding horns menacingly driving the song until it flares into a dreamy miasma of intangible synth sounds. Thunderous instruments halt for a second whilst Andy holds the listener tentative with momentous suspense - Christ, we’re getting deep here, maaaan - until a full army of Massive Attack beats smack our ears into shape. ‘Girl I Love You’ elevates towards the end, climaxing with lingering, synths.

‘Psyche’ featuring Martina Topley-Bird 
Martina Topley-Bird is back on vocal duties for ‘Psyche’. ‘I’m looking for you in the woods tonight/I’m looking for you with my flash light,’ she sings, siren-like. Repetitive, hypnotic plucks of guitar creates a feverish vibe, Topley-Bird’s angelic vocals trickling over the top of ceaseless, eerie melodies and beats before ‘Psyche’ stops abruptly.

‘Flat Of The Blade’ featuring Guy Garvey
A throbbing beat pulses along as Guy Garvey schizophrenically hums like a sample snatched from Bjork’s ‘Medulla’. The fusion between Garvey’s familiar, vocal warmth and his dark, melancholic tone and lyricism, for example, ‘I’m not good in a crowd/I’ve got skills I can’t speak of’ works brilliantly, especially combined with Massive Attack’s Aphex Twin-styled static electricity blips, igniting an air of uneasiness throughout ‘Flat Of The Blade’. ‘Things that I’ve seen would chase me to the grave’, the Elbow singer solemnly croons, as minimal drums snip at the heels of mechanical blips. The song ends on a Thom Yorke ‘Skip Divided’-esque whimsical hum and ‘ahhh’. Stirring stuff.

‘Paradise Circus’ featuring Hope Sandoval
Hope Sandoval’s whispering, seductive vocals drowsily crawl over simple pianos and a stark, staccato handclap on ‘Paradise Circus’. Compared to previous tracks, its simplicity adds a subtle gorgeous groove to the album, as Sandoval bewitchingly, breathily sings, ‘We can roll ourselves over when we’re uncomfortable’ like the most blackhearted bed talk you’ve ever heard. The song swoops into soaring strings, ending with a euphoric, skyscraping climax. 

‘Rush Minute’ featuring Robert del Naja
‘I want to be clean but I’ve gotta get high’ grimly sings Naja. This piano lead piece has a beguiling, deathly tone with its ‘Hail To The Thief’ paranoid, jagged and worrisome momentum. It builds into a beautiful piano melody, never quite reaching the climax that it possibly could.

‘Saturday Come Slow’ featuring Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn’s voice drifts over the stripped-down percussion of ‘Heligoland’‘s final – and standout - track. ‘Saturday Come Slow’ gradually picks up momentum until Damon cries ‘Do you love me?’ over the chorus with an Elliott Smith-like howl. There’s a pause halfway through before the album ends with swelling strings and Damon singing ‘Is there nothing there?’, providing an aptly low ebb to end a melancholic album on.

Thoughts after the first few listens of ‘Heligoland’? It’s a compositionally exhausting body of work, with Massive Attack adapting their style to the qualities of whoever providing vocals. There are some incredible moments of intensity and darkness that reveal themselves from the off and, like all the best Massive Attack records, some you feel will show themselves with repeated listens. They take their time in releasing albums, but ‘Heligoland’ sounds like it’s definitely been worth labouring over.

‘Heligoland’ will be reviewed proper in a future issue of The Fly…