Massive Attack – Splitting the Atom EP

Reviewed by Helen Stephenson

If you will excuse the poor joke, I am a massive Massive Attack fan, and it was with great eagerness that I put the Splitting the Atom EP in my CD drive. I was immediately confronted with an EP unlike any other music Massive Attack have released.

The trick with this record is to forget that it is Massive Attack. Again excuse the pun, but I know this is tricky. When you recall such seminal releases such as Blue Lines and Mezzanine you immediately feel disappointed, even cheated by this record. The songs just don’t seem to have the same depth and beauty of previous seminal masterpieces such as ‘Teardrop’, ‘Angel’ or ‘Man Next Door’. But if you succeed in ignoring the fact that this is Massive Attack and don’t compare it to their previous releases, you’re actually listening to some good music. Hearing Guy Garvey’s vocals on ‘Bulletproof Love’ was surprisingly pleasant, and whilst you could hear the musical influence that the Elbow front man has had on the track, it also had a distinctly un-Elbowlike quality to it. Equally it did not sound like the Massive Attack we have all grown to know and love. By far my favourite track on this EP was ‘Psyche (Flash Treatment)’, featuring the gorgeous vocals of Martina Topley-Bird. This track has a twinge of a dubstep feel to it, whilst still maintaining the sense of a classic chill-out track. Of the four songs, ‘Psyche’ was the most encouraging, and if the new album due out next year is along the lines of this track I do not doubt that it will be another sensational record.

I do not think Massive Attack were attempting to continue down the musical path they have become so established on with this EP. This is a move in a new direction, into new territory that they have not covered before. Now there is just the question of convincing massive Massive Attack fans that this is something to get excited about.

4/5