Massive Attack
Protection

THE REVIEW

Album of emotionally rich modulated electronics, a nocturnal album, trip hop is a term I don't like to use for this album. Trip hop is a cage for this music that relaxes you on a four-wheeler speeding toward the darkness and its treasure chests of secrets of a nocturnal Babylon to be seduced... start with song number one, and suddenly she, Tracey Thorne, brings the refined grace of early Everything But The Girl, illuminating the track that opens and titles the album, essentially a suburban and dreamy white answer to "Safe from Harm" which opened the previous album, equally in need of cuddles and a nook to find refuge, equally beautiful.
And a one-two that cuts your legs: the languid rap with Andean aromas of "Karmacoma" that celebrates the contrast in a vocal duel between the rhymers 3D and Tricky (who will be offended and will carry the song into his solo debut to give life to "Overcome").
Two other stellar tracks to finish the quartet: "Sly" sees Nicolette impersonate a Lady Day with more confidence in the future invited to the court dance between techno-rococo stuccos and the instrumental "Heat Miser", a soundtrack for a film yet to be made, preferably with a soft focus effect and imbued with cosmic Blade Runner-esque pessimism.

For three-quarters, the album is superb, then the Bristolians, sparing themselves new efforts, thought it wise to follow the lazy beat of their heart engine and replicated it in the other half, so "Weather Storm" substitutes "Heat Miser" in a more languid key, the traces of "Karmacoma" are followed with a slightly slick conviction in "Eurochild" (a knockoff version of it would end up in the TV commercial for a well-known beer: mysteries of advertising...), but despite being epigonal, these 2 tracks remain very, very seductive.
Final mention for the two tracks with a Jamaican aftertaste by Horace Andy: "Spying Glass" is an accomplished dubbed reggae with the limitations of an exercise in style, the final "live in studio" jam of "Light my Fire" (yes, it's that one) is a nostalgic tribute to their Massive sound-system past but with alcohol levels worthy of a breathalyzer and quantities of ganja enough for immediate arrest.

Not a masterpiece, but a demonstration of dazzling class and above all a soundtrack that will get into your head immediately and will lead you through highway nights you young lovers and connoisseurs of superior class.
Not recommended for the coarse, recommended for elegant individuals who know how to let their heartbeats drift in the right atmospheres.