Bristolian trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack have always had
their fingers on the trigger in relation to the wider world, be it from working
with music’s biggest stars to curating a week long art project in a disused
warehouse. They’re the strange kind of group who are as at home live in Wembley
Arena or the crumbling masonry of an old textile mill. Their latest music, the Ritual Spirit EP released this week, has
been gradually teased through the Fantom app that plays snippets in regards to
your heartbeat. It’s all very intriguing as concepts go.
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| Massive Attack, live in Los Angeles in 2014. |
But they’ve never been short of relevant opinions, as they
demonstrate at tonight’s show at Leeds’s O2 Academy, a trip-hop masterclass
shot through with a political intensity. Behind them on stage, large LED
screens flash the flags of Middle Eastern countries and American corporation
logos in a rapid, red-and-black stark pattern, interspersed with images of the
ongoing refugee crisis. Internal displacement is a key topic, as figures of
migrant applications, presented in an oddly-disjointed Teletext format, harking
back to the early nineties when they were one of the most exciting bands in the
country. Real headlines condemning celebrity culture and world leaders – CBB,
David Cameron – are interspersed with fake ones, regarding Viking invasions, a
refuge in audacity that seems weirdly plausible in the age of the click-bait
headline. It’s clunky at times but disarmingly effective when personal details
and questions regarding bank balances and sexual orientations flicker on-screen
in the wake of the NSA and Snowden.
The kinetic visuals and political message would fall flat if
the band couldn’t deliver live, but they meet requirements with aplomb. Opener Battle Box 001 is a juddering, twitchy industrial
punch, anchored by Martina Topley-Bird, whose soft ethereal vocals deliver
quieter highlights in the form of 2010 single Paradise Circus, a down-tempo haunting ballad, and the ubiquitous Teardrop, which triggers a grandstanding
of couples waving slowly in the air. But other vocalists shine too; regular
collaborator Horace Andy delivers two storming tracks in the shape of the
bass-rumbling Girl I Love You and
live favourite Angel; support act
Young Fathers join the band for the final two tracks of the encore, both new
tracks from Ritual Spirit, including Voodoo in My Blood, a number that flirts
with the idea of being a bona-fide pop track for a few oddly tantalising
seconds.
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| Massive Attack, live with Martina Topley-Bird in 2010. |
The new material is strong – the eerie Ritual Spirit is softly spoken, and He Needs Me is one of their best tracks in years – but the absence
of some big hits is keenly felt. Nothing from Blue Lines makes the cut, with the absence of such genre-defining
tracks as Safe From Harm and Unfinished Sympathy noticeable as the
show winds towards its conclusion. But Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall,
better known as 3D and Daddy G, steer their ship in such as decisive manner
that, as the throb of Inertia Creeps
and Risingson blows up around them
with palpable electro-menace, it feels somewhat boorish to criticise them for
it. They do deliver the dub-indebted Karmacoma
near the close, and the place erupts. Twenty-five years after they burst out of
Bristol, Massive Attack have pulled off the unfeasible trick of making a live
concert into a political examination; but when they’re this engaging to watch,
it’s difficult to do anything other than applaud.
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