Near the end of Massive Attack's Heligoland, Saturday Come Slow, Damon Albarn is all but unidentifiable as he sings of a "white wall canvas", a place he can go to leave one last piece of himself before he says goodbye. It was possible to dismiss the voice of Parklife as smarmy at best and downright self-righteous at worst. Too precocious, too full of himself. Albarn has changed. Out of tune and scrapping his heart across sandpaper he becomes unimaginably hurt, aching and uber-slow.
It is a minimal, grey effort from a band unafraid by colours even if they are blue hues rather than vibrant rainbows. If this is still trip-hop then it is done differently in 2010, seven years on from the duo's last effort. Samples have utterly disappeared and have not been replaced by anything but air. There is, of course, drum loops and distant electronic flourishes.
And it's oddly beautiful but not Heligoland's highwater mark by any hearing. Maybe the point is early when TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe appears in the opener Pray For Rain. His incandescent and benevolent voice wonders through clouds of street percussion and darkly ominous piano. It truly is an obvious partnership, influenced as TV are by the 20 years of Massive Attack, even if it's not sonically obvious. That influence has also worked back a little. You can hear the Brooklyn band's peculiar approach to playing coming through.
At 4:22 this song has a moment of white light beauty. Adebimpe's voice is choral, the music gone from almost industrial cacophony to luscious, flowered field.
If all this sounds a little the same it's because 20 years ago Massive Attack invented it. It's not overly important to decide where Heligoland fits in a list of the band's five albums, only to realise and remember just how good the sound is.
It's difficult to think of much beyond Tricky and Portishead that matters in the genre although its influence has spread from the obvious noises of Radiohead through the metal of Nine Inch Nails and Deftones and unfortunately on to the dross of the 2010 charts.
At the mid-way point of Heligoland is Psyche. Martina Topley-Bird's appearance reminds ears she remains one of trip-hops finest vocal contributors. It is perhaps the densest moment in an album of ten songs. The nervous tick of something electronic plays against a paranoid riff and equally anxious bass line. Topley-Bird's voice seems to wrap around itself, chasing the music as it slowly builds to an unknown destination.
Paradise City is a spooky, hand clap led song accompanied by the voice of Hope Sandoval. Piano and slowly sweeping strings make the song and it is at its best without Sandoval's voice. That is not meant as a criticism rather a simple statement. The best moments in the song are toward the climax.
Heligoland is, firstly, a welcome return from a band that is needed on the sonic landscape. It offers so much more to digest than the vast majority of albums in 2010. This is not easy music by any stretch, there is warrant for repeated listens. To call these songs enjoyable would be wrong even though they are that. It's much better to just call them good.
