Heligoland

The result is a record that alternates between fuzzy and crisp; those who like to get lost in their headphones should approve.

While this record may have cast the veil of melancholy over a chunk of its tracks, the noticeable difference should be welcome to fans old and new.

Instead of reintroducing the genre’s founding dub steps and club sensibilities, contributions from Massive Attack’s musical descendants (Blur/Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn, Portishead’s Adrian Utley) lend quieter atmospherics that amplify the emotion of the band’s mainstay whispers.

It still warms the blood to hear those trip-hop synths roll on the slow-burning "Flat of the Blade" (with some acid loops thrown in for good measure), but Massive Attack's arsenal has expanded and the resulting onslaught is nothing short of brilliant.

If the clusters of gloomy chords and ominous breakbeat that opens Pray for Rain suggests that Marshall's return hasn't lifted Massive Attack's musical mood, it's certainly done something to their sound, as evidenced by the ­juddering, dubby bassline of Paradise Circus, which is more beautiful than any song apparently named after a roundabout in central Birmingham has a right to be.

Returning from a six-year long wilderness of soundtrack work and greatest hits, ‘Heligoland’ sees the duo back at the top of their game.

Heligoland doesn't touch the perfection of Blue Lines, but few albums do. It is though a return to form from one of the real pioneering bands of our age.

By the time the closing brass-driven sequences of the 3D-fronted ‘Almost Air’ ebb away, Massive Attack feel like a living, breathing vital force once again.

Listening to the array of styles, from the Jim O'Rourke-like folk of "Psyche", laced with Martina Topley-Bird's cosmic incantation, to "Splitting The Atom"'s opiated rocksteady or Hope Sandoval's dusky ballad, "Paradise Circus", it's conceivable Del Naja and Marshall needed every minute of those years to concoct such alluring material.

Through it all, Massive Attack are more menacing than midnight in the darklands. Welcome back--you've been missed terribly. [Mar 2010, p.96]

But the haunting horns under Horace Andy's vocal on "Girl I Love You" and mind-tickling thump of closer "Atlas Air" are pure genius from the minds of Grantley Marshall and Robert Del Naja: creepy and danceable.

Thanks largely in part to founding member/mainstay Robert "3D" Del Naja, there still remains that indefinable, singular aspect to Massive Attack that still carried the group over the hump of 2003's tepid 100th Window and onto the superior Heligoland.

Yet there's certainly no shame in falling behind three albums that are as brilliant as those are. For the fans, this is a blast - suddenly, trip-hop's Godfathers are back on track.

Trip-hop pioneers give doom a romantic tinge.

“Heligoland” comes across as an anthology rather than an album. It’s a dour collection of concepts and strategies — some successful — as Massive Attack ponders what to do after trip-hop.

Horace Andy and Hope Sandoval front some impressive productions, and Damon Albarn's "Saturday Come Slow" is one of his best post-Blur features (including Gorillaz), but overall Heligoland lacks the majesty and might of classic Massive Attack.

Haunting vocals by TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe and Mazzy's Star's Hope Sandoval calm the jitters here, but the crew have gotten comfy just tripping out, but they sometimes forget the hooks. [12/19 Feb 2010, p.105]