Album review: Massive Attack - Heligoland

Published on Sunday 7 February 2010 10:34

MASSIVE ATTACK Heligoland **** Virgin Music CDV3070 £12.99

The Bristol duo may not have maintained the mesmerising innovation of their formative years, but they remain ahead of the pack.

Big name collaborators on their new album include Elbow's Guy Garvey and Damon Albarn doing his superannuated Artful Dodger turn.

Garvey pulls off his detached indifference without sounding stretched. But then neither does long time collaborator Horace Andy, a man who not so much sings a song as spiritually possesses it. Splitting The Atom might be an off-world transmission, while Girl I Love You starts with a bass riff bubbling from deep underground, with his sweet dub tones cutting through the mesmerising beats and dark parping brass section.

Strikingly the CD starts strong, and finishes stronger. The opening Pray For Rain sweeps in on a dark swirl of piano and percussion, before Tunde Adebimpe's silky vocal wraps the melody.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Beach Boys had beamed in for a beautifully harmonious musical bridge, leading us to the rest of an impressively consistent album. Massive Attack remain essential to British music's soul.

Download these: Pray For Rain, Girl I Love You

&#149 This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 07 February 2010