Massive Attack’s Minor Failure

The organ stabs on “Splitting the Atom,” the title track from Massive Attack’s new EP, are almost so self-conscioiusly spooky that one wonders if the group is performing with a wink instead of a grimace.  The song, with its twirling synths with whispered harmonies, is Dracula’s hoedown sing-along.

It’s still Massive Attack’s world-weary sense of foreboding, but something has changed. The group has upgraded from eerily organic to starkly dystopian.

It’s been six years since the group’s last proper album and Robert Del Naja (3D) and Grant Marshall (Daddy G) have spent the time listening: to their new spouses, to British politics and to the rock band TV on the Radio, according to a recent interview with “Under the Radar.”

Little remains the same. Gone are the Eastern flavors of Massive Attack’s past work, replaced by disfigured click tracks and ominous sheets of digital sound. The clumsy thud of the two final tracks (both of which are throwaway remixes) is just lazy coming from the production team that crafted “Teardrop.”  The songs stalk around in circles, eternally builing up to nothing.

It’s odd then, that this lonely dance music was such a collaborate effort.  The group shares vocals with longtime friend and dub legend Horace Andy on the title track and the results are familiarly unsettling. TVOTR’s singer Tunde Adebimpe guests on “Pray For Rain,” the release’s best song, while Guy Garvey and Martina Topley-Bird whine the EP to a close. So much talent, but where is the songwriting?

Not here. Splitting the Atom is a release that vainly searches for humanity in spite of its own electronic trappings. The band has finally escaped to the club scene that their past work merely flirted with, to make the kind of monochromatic dance music that floats in and out of listeners’ minds. Massive Attack, for the first time in their career, holds tone above song.

If Splitting the Atom is a taste of Massive Attack’s next full-length, which is set for a February release, it’s like to sound unlike anything the group has released.  That’s a shame.